Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and his brother, ex-boxing champion Volodymyr Klitschko, have filed suit against 1+1 TV to defend their honor and dignity. “Not a day goes by when the top-rated TV channel says unkind word of the Kyiv mayor. Lies, manipulations, fabricated information. I already said that I would defend my honor and dignity in court. My brother and I have filed a suit against the channel, which flings mud at us. They decided not to stop at me and already have targeted my brother Volodymyr,” Vitali Klitschko said during a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.
Klitschko said, “We are not talking about an attack on freedom of speech,” adding that the head of the channel (Servant of the People Party member of parliament candidate Oleksandr Tkachenko) “is a contender to head of the Kyiv City State Administration.”
Klitschko said campaign had been launched against him. He said the channel’s coverage about the new pedestrian-bicycle bridge in the center of Kyiv and restoration of the Shuliavsky overpass are examples of slanted coverage.
As reported, 1+1 Media Director General Oleksandr Tkachenko, who was elected to parliament on the Servant of the People Party list, has refused to comment about the possibility of his appointment to head of the Kyiv City State Administration.
The political advertising for the period of presidential election is the most expensive on Ukraine, Football 1 and Football 2 TV channels – UAH 5,658 per second in prime time, while on radio the largest rates are UAH 4 per second in Kyiv. According to the announcements of Ukrainian television and radio companies in the Holos Ukrainy newspaper last week, advertisements in the interval from 1:00 to 6:00 will cost the cheapest for presidential candidates from UAH 0.24 on Otse TV channel to UAH 1,498 on Ukraine, Football 1 and Football 2 TV channels. A second of advertising at night on Novy, STB, M1 and ICTV will cost UAH 1.2, while on NewsOne it costs UAH 520.
Advertising in the interval from 18:00 to 19:00 is the most expensive: from UAH 8.4 (on Sunday) on the M2 channel to UAH 5,658 on the Ukraine, Football 1 and Football 2 (on weekdays).
A second of advertising in this hourly space on Novy will cost UAH 872.4 on Sunday and UAH 495.6 on weekdays; on STB – UAH 1,296 and UAH 668.4, respectively.
On ICTV one will have to pay UAH 886.8 for a second on Sunday and UAH 927.6 on weekdays, and on Inter and NewsOne – UAH 2,660 and UAH 650 respectively, regardless of the day of the week.
Advertising in the interval from 7:00 to 8:00 starts from UAH 2.4 (on Sunday) on the M2 channel to UAH 839 on the Ukraine, Football 1 and Football 2 TV channels.
A second of advertising in this one-hour period on Novy will cost UAH 75.6 on Sunday and UAH 135.6 on weekdays; on STB – UAH 247.2 and UAH 182.4 respectively; ICTV – UAH 334.8 and UAH 320.4, on Inter and NewsOne – UAH 510 and UAH 420 respectively, regardless of the day of the week.
Pryamiy TV Channel offers to buy a second from 1:00 to 17:00 for UAH 500 and from 17:00 to 1:00 – for UAH 700.
On radio airtime in Kyiv remains the most expensive – up to UAH 4 per second in the daytime and UAH 2 per second at night at the Shanson radio. Airtime in cities with population of more than 1 million and Lviv city costs from UAH 0.3 per second up to UAH 1.5 per second, in other regional centers and cities of regional importance – from UAH 0.1 to UAH 0.8 per second.
Volia provider (Kyiv) expects that ARPU (average revenue per user per month) will increase by 25% in 2018 compared with 2017, to UAH 137, Volia CEO Gyorgy Zsembery has told Interfax-Ukraine. “Thanks to our focus on high-margin subscribers, this year I expect ARPU to be UAH 137. ARPU growth is expected to be 25% by the end of the year,” he said, not disclosing the company’s revenue forecasts.
Zsembery also said that the company plans to increase the share of interactive TV users in the total number of TV subscribers to 20% by the end of this year. At the end of the first half of the year, their share in the company was 16%.
According to him, over the past five years, Volia has invested UAH 2 billion in technology and content.
“This has worked. In the years when the market did not grow at all, we always had revenue growth – at least 10% starting from 2015. We believe in the Ukrainian market, so we will continue investing in those areas in which we are strong and competitive – into our digital content and telecommunications network,” he said.
Volia services around 2 million cable TV and Internet subscribers in 34 cities and towns of Ukraine. It is managed by Providence Equity Partners (34.92%), private international investment company SigmaBleyzer (15.3%) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD, 11.7%).
Television remains the key source of information for two thirds of Ukrainians and Internet for each second citizen, according to a poll conducted jointly by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), the Razumkov Center and the Socis Center for Social and Marketing Research. According to information presented at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on September 14, 75.7% of respondents prefer receiving information about events in Ukraine and the world via watching national TV channels, and 49.7% of respondents from Internet.
Almost for each third Ukrainian (29.5%) friends, colleagues, relatives and neighbors are the source of information.
Some 10.4% of Ukrainians receive information via listening to FM radio stations and 10.3% from newspapers and magazines.
The face-to-face poll of 10,005 respondents was conducted in the Ukrainian territories controlled by Kyiv on August 30 to September 9, 2018. The respondent sampling is representative by sex, age, region and type of settlement.
