The media industry in Ukraine has undergone several important changes since the start of the war on February 24.
Faced with an existential threat, the country within a matter of weeks decided to combine all its national TV channels into a single platform as part of what President Zelensky termed a “unified information policy”. At the same time, the news channel Ukraina 24, operated by Media Group Ukraine (MGU), one of the country’s four leading media groups at the time, became a voice for Ukraine on the international stage. Indeed, as of this June it was being watched in 105 million households worldwide.
The fact that Ukraina 24 is no longer on air is down to the Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, whose company SCM owned MGU, deciding to in early July to leave the country’s media industry. His reasons for doing so, still visible on the single page that appears on MGU’s website, were curbs on oligarchs – he denied being one – contained in legislation entitled “On preventing threats to national security associated with the excessive influence of persons who have significant economic and political weight in public life (oligarchs)”.
Had Akhmetov stayed on, he would have been required to sell his media assets within a six-month timeframe and this was in his view too short to do so on market terms.
More recently, in late August the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) adopted a draft media law in its first reading. The legislation is seen as crucial in the light of the current situation and the fact that on June 23 Ukraine secured candidate status for joining the EU.
It is based on the European Union Directive on Audiovisual Media Services and will be submitted to the EC for processing by experts before being adopted by the Verkhovna Rada by the end of the year.
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