Ukraine has amended a law concerning the use of the local language in electronic media.
According to the regulator National Council, it will start monitoring TV stations when the new rules come into effect on October 13.
The rules stipulate that national and regional channels should allocate 75% of their airtime to Ukrainian language films and programmes, while local broadcasters should allocate 60%. Furthermore, 75% of all news broadcasts should be in Ukrainian.
Violation of the rules will lead to fines equivalent to 5% of broadcasters’ licence fees.
The National Council monitored the Ukrainian language content of 30 TV channels this February.
It says it is currently developing a methodology for calculating the share of the Ukrainian language in broadcasts that all parties can understand in order to avoid misunderstandings between the regulator and licencees.
