Volume 11 - Issue 53
/ May 2022
59
https:// www.amazoniainvestiga.info ISSN 2322 - 6307
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2022.53.05.6
How to Cite:
Bidzilya, Y., Tolochko, N., Haladzhun, Z., Solomin, Y., & Shapovalova, H. (2022). The problems in the development of public
broadcasting in the polycultural borderland Region of Ukraine. Amazonia Investiga, 11(53), 59-69.
https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2022.53.05.6
The problems in the development of public broadcasting in the
polycultural borderland Region of Ukraine
Проблеми розвитку суспільного мовлення в полікультурному прикордонному
регіоні України
Received: April 20, 2022 Accepted: May 22, 2022
Written by:
Yuriy Bidzilya25
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5134-3239
Nataliia Tolochko26
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9828-9687
Zoriana Haladzhun27
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3487-6057
Yevhen Solomin28
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6770-5505
Halyna Shapovalova29
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8935-5673
Abstract
The paper discusses the main challenges faced by
the implementation and development of Public
television (Ukrainian: Suspilne telebachennia) in
the polycultural borderland of Ukraine
(Transcarpathia), considering national
peculiarities. The relevance of the research is due
to the necessity of a detailed analysis of the
organizational and developmental processes of
the Transcarpathian Public television, the
development forecast, and the search for
opportunities and new decisions accounting for
the factors that determine its uniqueness. Were
used such methods: empirical (observation,
description, measuring); theoretical (axiomatic,
hypothetico-deductive); general methods
(analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization);
unique methods, among which the most
productive were the various types of analysis
(thematic, genre, stylistic analysis). The given
results of the research draw up strategies for the
Transcarpathian television and its importance in
the conditions of the polycultural region,
25
Doctor of Science in Social Communications, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Philology, Uzhhorod National University,
Uzhhorod, Ukraine.
26
PhD of Sciences in Social Communications, Associate Professor of the Department of Journalism, Faculty of Philology, Uzhhorod
National University, Uzhhorod, Ukraine.
27
PhD in Communication, Associate Professor of Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Lviv Polytechnic National
University, Lviv, Ukraine.
28
PhD in Social Communications, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Journalism, Faculty of Philology, Uzhhorod
National University, Uzhhorod, Ukraine.
29
PhD in Philology, Associate Professor of the Department of Journalism, Faculty of Philology, Uzhhorod National University,
Uzhhorod, Ukraine.
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considering its borderland location in connection
with its historical-cultural, social-political
peculiarity in the context of the rapid
development of new media.
Keywords: Public broadcasting, Public
television, regional television, polycultural
borderland region, new media.
Introduction
In many European countries, the transition from
state-owned television and radio broadcasting to
public broadcasting underwent during the 1970s.
However, this happened no sooner than 2014 in
Ukraine. Though, the legislative requirements
were set right after the independence of Ukraine
in 1997. It was the period of the adoption of
Public Broadcasting and Television Service Law
for Ukraine. According to Ostapa et al. (2018),
11 bills on Public broadcasting were created
between 1997 to 2013. Though, none of these
accelerated its development. Some of the reasons
for it were as follows: not understanding the
content and purpose of such broadcasting; the
politicians' intent to abuse the opportunities
granted by state-owned broadcasting services;
the opinion that only state-controlled
broadcasting may serve national and patriotic
ideas; the journalists' disinterest towards
changes; the lack of competitive environment in
the field of Mass media; etc.
A peculiar sign of Ukrainian Public broadcasting
is that its activity is aimed at satisfying the
information needs of both national and regional
levels. Several foreign models of functioning
have been discussed prior to its creation. Among
them was the Polish model (Kyrych, 2014). As a
result, public broadcasting was created based on
state television and radio broadcasting.
Therefore, the National Council of Television
and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine is a joint-
stock company with 100% of the state's shares.
Public broadcasting is financed by the State
budget of Ukraine and commercial input with
gradual transfer to financing by consumers and
income from commercial activity. The National
Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of
Ukraine joint-stock company is composed of two
national television companies, three national
radio companies and 22 branches. The latter are
regional broadcasters that operate in almost
every region of Ukraine (Law of Ukraine 1227-
VII, 2021).
The Transcarpathian regional directorate is a
branch of the National Council of Television and
Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine that was
established in 2015 in a similar way other
branches appeared in the rest of the Ukrainian
regions. It was based on the regional state
television and radio company model. It combines
the UA: Zakarpattia (former Tisa-1) television
channel and two radio stations: Uzhhorod and
Tisa FM. It is distinguished by the fact that it is
one of the three Ukrainian branches that creates
content for ethnic groups and operates in a
polycultural borderland region with deep
traditions of foreign broadcasting. Considering
the former, information safety is a crucial
question in this polyethnic region. As has been
rightly pointed out by researcher Bidzilya (2017)
who studied the formation problems of the
national-information identity of the
Transcarpathians and the role of the mass media
in intercultural communication, the Ukrainian
state must be represented in Transcarpathia and
propose the borderland regions such information-
communication strategy that would support the
media designed for and about the ethnic groups,
as well as would suggest content about the state
created for such citizens in such way deepening
the feeling of social responsibility for everything
that happens in the country the citizens of which
they are (Bidzilya et al., 2020).
This research paper is aimed at studying the
peculiarities of the establishment and
development of Public television of Ukraine's
westernmost region, Transcarpathia; analyzing
the context, investigating problems, technical
and artistic resources of such broadcasting from
its time of emergence in 2015 till now; inspecting
the trends of the interaction between the
Transcarpathian Public broadcasting and the
newest media; elaborating suggestions on a
successful transformation of the regional public
television in context of historical, ethnocultural,
and political specifics of the land in the light of
modern challenges and threats. To our mind, a
significant disadvantage of Ukrainian Public
broadcasting lies in neglecting the regional
characteristics while choosing the optimal
model, developing the typical structure for all the
regional companies, uniting all the principal
resources, both human and financial, in Kyiv
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without the opportunity to decide important
questions, to create versatile genre content that
would aim at the local viewer in regional
companies, all of this resulting in a negative
impact on the development of the independent
regional Public broadcasting.
Literature Review
Thus, the relevance of researching the
Transcarpathian branch of Public television
increases in the context of global and local
information challenges in the light of the
aspirations of our state towards European
integration during the process of establishing
tolerant intercultural communication as well as in
connection with further reforms in the field of
media (Potschka & Golding, 2012). There is an
increasing need for elaborating a strategy or
optimal development plan for Public
broadcasting in the borderland region that would
combine informational, analytical, cultural, and
entertaining content in a rational way. In
addition, it should take into consideration the
informational, cultural, and religious needs of the
largest ethnic groups of the land. Developing an
effective operational model for broadcasting in
the border area is especially crucial under the
conditions of military aggression, considering
the need to defend the national information space
(Syvertsen, 2001).
Many academic papers concerning the problem
of public broadcasting directly or indirectly have
been prepared and plenty of theses have been
defended by Ukrainian researchers since the
1990s (Husak, 2005; Dzholos, 2017; Kyrych,
2014; Tolochko, 2020c; etc.). For instance,
organizational, jurisdictional, and
communicational aspects of such broadcasting
including on regional level were studied by
Dzholos (2017). He correctly pointed out that
public broadcasters should reflect the uniqueness
of the region and work according to standards
under the conditions of rough competence with
privately-owned channels. Apart from this, the
functionality of television and radio broadcasting
was discussed in scientific circles. Thus,
researchers Khomenko and Fomenko (2013)
studied Public broadcasting from the position of
Norbert Wiener's concept of homeostasis. They
concluded that such broadcasting can be built on
theoretical levels like "creating a signal" (news
agency), "improving the signal" (journalistic
research services), and improving the audience
(television and radio art). The rest of the
programs can be developed on the basis of these.
In such way public broadcasting would facilitate
the viewers' development and decrease the
possibility of propaganda to the minimum. As a
matter of fact, such a model is partly
implemented in the Ukrainian media market. A
significant part of the Public television material
accentuates the very news segment. However,
research, documentaries of their own making,
entertaining and educational content are
prevailingly concentrated around the main
national channel. The broadcast of the regional
branches is filled with retransmissions.
The foreign scientific discourse represents
research on the problems of Ukrainian Public
broadcasting. It includes analytical reports on its
operation that describe the efficient ways of
financing such broadcasting (Dragomir et al.,
2019), research papers aimed at studying the
independence of Public broadcasting in the
context of European standards (Hruba, 2019).
However, there is a lack of papers devoting
attention to the regional peculiarities of
Ukrainian Public broadcasting, especially to
those operating in borderland areas.
Methodology
The principal methods of researching the
Transcarpathian Public television are as follows:
empirical (observation, description, measuring),
which gave the opportunity to spot the most
obvious traits of television, capture some of its
traits on the level of content and form, register
some quality characteristics; theoretical
(axiomatic, hypothetico-deductive); general
methods (analysis, synthesis, comparison,
generalization); special methods, among which
the most productive were the various types of
analysis (thematic, genre, stylistic analysis).
Therefore, we would like to accentuate the
observation method among the empirical ones.
We referred to it in the first stage of the research
in order to find out the characteristic traits of the
Transcarpathian Public television and its
peculiarities in general. With the help of the
description method, we learn the formal and
semantic features of the content of the former
state television of Transcarpathia, in particular,
for the national minorities. The measuring
method helped us determine the number of
television programs of the former state and now
Public broadcasting, the general duration of the
content in Ukrainian and other languages. It was
possible to find out the principle traits of Public
broadcasting with the help of methods of analysis
and synthesis. Certainly, we applied the subtypes
of analysis while acting in this field. For instance,
classification was used to study television
content that was grouped by thematic orientation,
focus on different ages, specialized audiences,
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etc. The abstract method made it possible to
accentuate those traits of the Transcarpathian
television channels that would finally allow us to
form a complex understanding about the
establishment and development of Public
television of the borderland area. As a separate
form of the abstract method, idealization was
applied during defining the quality of the
television programs. The comparison method
was implemented at different stages of the
research. For example, it was used during the
analysis of formal and semantic features of the
content. Researchers Fickers and Johnson (2010)
correctly point out that television can be studied
on the following levels: local, regional, national,
and/or global; rural or urban; may take into
consideration topographic or geopolitical
features. The comparison can be synchronous or
diachronic and might indicate the micro-meso-
macro-historical perspective (Kitsa & Mudra,
2018). Of not less importance is the method of
generalization. It helped us find out the leading
tendencies of the functioning of the
Transcarpathian Public television from its
establishment till today. In addition, it was used
to investigate the main challenges taking into
consideration the historical, political, and
cultural features of the region. The methods of
induction and deduction were also important
during the comprehension of the tendencies of
the Transcarpathian television for development
in multicultural, polyethnic, and borderland
areas. In regards to special methods, different
types of analysis turned out to be the most
productive for us: thematic, genre, and stylistic
analysis as well as certain sociological, statistic
methods or their various means. For example,
various types of analysis were applied while
researching content. The informal interview was
preferred among sociological methods. It was
aimed at a profound and versatile study of a
specific object. Such a method allowed us to find
out the peculiarity of the development of the
oldest television of Transcarpathia during a talk
with the producer of the current Public
broadcaster. Statistic methods and their means
helped define the quantitative characteristics of
the television content, the proportion of different
means of broadcasting including the ones
designed for the national minorities.
Results and Discussion
Traditions of Television Broadcasting in the
Polyethnic Borderland Region
The television of Ukraine's western borderland
region constitutes an important part of the
European and national media space. The
audiovisual Mass media of the land were
established parallel to the development of the
radio and attempts to introduce television to the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and in the
context of the European information-
communication background. Thus, signals were
transmitted onto the territory of Transcarpathia
by Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. It embraced
Ukraine's westernmost region officially called
Carpathian Ruthenia between 1918 to 1939.
Broadcasting in the Ukrainian language was
established on the territory of Transcarpathia
when Carpathian Ruthenia received autonomous
status in September 1938. It was during the
period of the proclamation of Carpatho-Ukraine
which existed for only a few months, though left
a noticeable trace in history. The Soviet reign
brought along Soviet radio broadcasting to
Transcarpathia in November 1945. Television
broadcasting was introduced in 1965, but regular
broadcasts appeared no sooner than in February
1968 (Tolochko, 2020a).
From the very beginning, the organization of
radio and television in Transcarpathia took into
account the ethnic aspect. The ethnic landscape
of the westernmost land was constantly changing
during the last century due to the fact that seven
countries and states had existed on this territory
since the 19th century. Thus, apart from the
Ukrainians being the native nation, the largest
ethnic groups in different times were the
Hungarians, Romanians, Jews, Roma people,
Czechs and Slovaks, Germans, and Russians.
According to the census of 1921 and 1930, 62-
62.2% of Ukrainians, 17.2-16% of Hungarians,
13.4-13.1% of Jewish people, 3.3-4.8% of
Czechs and Slovaks, 1.9-1.7% of Romanians,
1.8-1.9% of Germans, and 2.1-0.3% of
representatives of other nationalities resided on
the territory of Transcarpathia (Tivodar, 2010).
The ethnic situation underwent significant
changes between 1946 and 1989. The most
populous national minorities after the Ukrainians
(68-78.4%) were as follows: Hungarians (17.4-
12.5%), Romanians (1.6-2.4%), Slovaks (1.7-
0.6%), Russians (1.5-4%), Roma people (0.06-
1%), and Germans (0.3%). According to the
Ukrainian national census of 2001,
representatives of over 100 nationalities and
ethnicities resided on the territory of
Transcarpathia during the independence of
Ukraine (State Statistics Committee of Ukraine,
2001). Since then, the largest native group has
been the Ukrainians (80.5%). Apart from them,
the largest Hungarian community (12.1% of the
land) of Ukraine, the only Slovak community
(0.5%) of Ukraine, one of the largest Romanian
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communities (2.6%), and a populous Roma
community (1.1%) reside here as well.
Therefore, no wonder that Ukrainian, Russian,
Hungarian, and Romanian language programs
began to be transmitted when regular radio and
television broadcasting was introduced in the 40-
60s. The former state and now Public television
channel has been broadcasting programs in the
languages of ethnic minorities since then.
However, the duration and quality of such
broadcasts were significantly different in the
USSR. These depended not as much on the size
of the minority, but on the ideology of the state.
The state television aired around 80% of its
shows in Ukrainian and the rest (around 20%)
was transmitted in other languages in the period
of independent Ukraine (until 2018). It is true
that the television channel had many flaws on the
formal and content levels. For example, these
ranged from the same type or partially repeated
formats inside separate television programs to
errors made by the narrators. These problems have
been analyzed in previous papers (Tolochko,
2020a).
Overview of Competitive Processes on the
Transcarpathian Media Market
A crucial operational aspect of Public
broadcasting lies within the competition on the
media market, both on a national and regional
level. Independent broadcasters must oppose
powerful privately-owned media structures and
media holdings. They are owned by financial-
oligarchic groups that possess significantly larger
resources, possibilities to capture audiences and
have been prevailingly present on the territory of
Ukraine since the 1990s. Syvertsen (2001), a
foreign researcher of Public Service
Broadcasting in Nordic countries rightly points
out that competition between public and
commercial broadcasters might, probably,
increase in the future. This depends on various
factors, mostly on the political system. This is
why the main question of the development of
such broadcasting arises: will public television
and radio broadcasters be able to persuade the
consumers each time that they offer a worthy
alternative to commercial broadcasting and
simultaneously satisfy the needs of the public in
information (Syvertsen et al., 2014). Such a
principle is present in Ukraine. That means that
Public television must prove its competitiveness.
It needs to prove the quality of its programs and
demonstrate exemplary compliance with
standards, thus, differentiating itself from private
channels.
Nine commercial television channels have been
represented in Transcarpathia since 1991: 21
Uzhhorod (in addition to that came the
Hungarian part TV21 Ungvár in 2018), Spektr,
Alians-TV and Kray-TB, M-Studio, RTK Khust,
Pershiy Kabelniy, Uzhinform, Sirius, and the
communal, partly privately-owned Vynohradiv
TV. Three of them, namely, Spektr, Alians-TV,
and Kray-TB had existed only for several years.
Their decline has been caused by problems that
can occur in any broadcaster's work, namely the
investor does not have interest in supporting the
television channel; the channel lacks staff which
leads to struggles in creating authentic content;
legal errors in the organization of broadcasting.
Currently, there are six private and one
communal, partly privately-owned channels that
have official broadcasting licenses in the region.
Four broadcasters belong to the category of local
(RTK Khust, Vynohradiv TV, Pershiy Kabelniy,
and Uzhinform) and four others belong to
regional broadcasters (UA: Zakarpattia, 21
Uzhhorod, M-Studio, and Sirius). Three of them
(Vynohradiv TV, Sirius, and Uzhinform) seized
to exist in 2019-2020 due to lack of funds and the
fact that their owners did not want to support the
activity of these channels. This situation clearly
illustrates the dependence of the private segment
of the Transcarpathian television market on the
political-oligarchic groups, their inability to
survive on their own under the market
conditions, as well as confirms the importance of
the independence of public television and radio
broadcasting in the region and the country in
general.
Therefore, in order to keep a larger part of the
audience than the commercial broadcasters, the
Public television needs to be more professional,
strictly adhere to the standards, comprehensively
inform the audience, and offer quality
informative-analytical programs, cultural, and
educational content.
The Peculiarities of the Formation of the Public
Broadcasting on the Basis of the Former State
Broadcasting
The Transcarpathian branch of Public television
was founded on the basis of the Transcarpathian
regional state television and radio company Tisa-
1 in Autumn 2015. In the beginning, it embraced
the Tisa-1 television channel and the Uzhhorod
and Tisa FM radio stations. The first years of
functioning of the state broadcaster being a
branch of The National Public Television and
Radio Company of Ukraine (2015-2016) did not
show any significant changes in the level of
content and management. Dozens of editorial
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offices still existed in the structure that aired
well-known projects for different ages (adults
and children), people of different gender (men
and women), nationalities (Ukrainians,
Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, Germans,
Russians, Roma people, etc.), religion, viewers
with disabilities, and people with high
specialization (programs of political, medical,
legal, economical, household, educational, and
artistic-cultural character).
The years of 2017-2018 are considered to be a
period of active development of Public
broadcasting of the westernmost region of
Ukraine. Significant transformations took place
on the level of content (the number of programs
decreased); the name of the channel was changed
(Tisa 1 shifted to UA: Zakarpattia in 2018); the
staff was reorganized (only 119 workers
remained out of 250). The production of unified
content was decreased from the former 6 hours to
3 hours 5 minutes; a typical structure was
introduced that would favor morning and
evening entertainment programs, informative-
analytical, broadcastings, and programs in the
languages of the national minorities (this
concerned the three branches that had such
broadcasting). Programs of high specialization
began to be shut down in 2017. These were
shows on legal, medical topics, etc. We would
like to note that the Transcarpathian Public
broadcaster was characterized by disadvantages
in this period. These were typical for all the
regional television channels and were spotted by
the yearly audit of 2017. Foremostly, it is the
quantitative and not qualitative principle of
content-making; unclear show formats
(especially of the culturological ones designed
for national minorities); the absence of
correlation between original television programs
and the number of the branch workers and the
size of the region; the orientation of the
informational-analytical author's programs on
the coverage of government activities (PO
Detector Media, 2019a).
Upon the creation of Public broadcasting,
significant changes on both content and formal
level took place in the informational television
program Vchasno (“Timely”) that was renamed
to Novyny (“News”) in 2018. The advantages and
disadvantages of the news program have been
noted in the generalized monitoring materials
devoted to breaching professional standards in
the news of the regional branches of the Public
Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (NSTU). The
monitoring was performed by PO Detector
media. The newscasts did not have any problems
with promptness, accuracy, and variety usually
(they devoted attention to every field, such as
religion, sport, the war in the Donbas region at
least to a little extent). As a result, the indicator
of compliance with journalist standards increased
between 2017 and 2019. The number of ordered
material decreased from 7% in 2017 to 0% in
2019 (PO Detector media, 2018a; 2018b; 2019b).
The branch was producing 3 hours 5 minutes on
a daily basis in 2019, similarly to other
broadcasters in different regions.
Reduction of Public Broadcasting of
Transcarpathia
More radical changes for regional studios were
proposed by the Concept of regional
broadcasting of the NSTU private joint-stock
company for 2020–2021. As a result, the
informational-analytical block was reduced to
almost an hour in length and was proposed to be
aired in the evening slot. The one in the morning
was integrated into the national Ukrainian
morning show. The rest of the programs were
proposed to be produced in cooperation with
other branches of the Suspilne or via outsourcing.
That means they planned to order around three
hours of air instead of developing their own
product, provide their employees with work,
utilize the available resources, update the
technical equipment, etc. The principles of
content production were expected to be changed.
This would lead to the reduction of the number
of full-time workers and to the transition to
project management (Tolochko, 2020b). Such
changes were negatively perceived in many
regional studios. Committees for saving Public
broadcasting were established by individual
activists. Representatives of the National Union
of Journalists of Ukraine, politicians, and public
figures participated in the discussion. The
pandemic situation of Spring 2020 prevented
further staff reduction. Thus, the employees were
brought to part-time positions. Some of them
remained to work and were involved in
producing interregional content. Due to
underfinancing of Public broadcasting, the
launch of important projects was delayed to
Autumn 2020.
In such a way, many changes took place in the
Transcarpathian branch of Public television since
the establishment of Public television and radio
broadcasting. They were implemented on the
level of management (instead of the
Transcarpathian State Television and Radio
Company branches were created; names of the
television channels were changed), program grid
(unique broadcastings were reduced;
informational-analytical and entertainment
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shows were prioritized; editorial offices were
closed and versatile programs along with them),
production organization (creation of programs in
cooperation with other branches or on
outsourcing), and in the staff list (reduction of
personnel). Such transformations as well the
operational peculiarities of the Public television
noted in the Concept of regional broadcasting for
2020-2021 indicate that the regional branches are
gradually being transformed into bureaus, they
are decreasing the number of their own products,
prefer media products made to order from private
third party structures and purchased content. For
instance, the 2020 report notes that the company
purchased "almost 200 hours of documentaries
and programs about nature from well-known
European companies like Offthefence and TVF"
(PO Detector media, 2021).
Challenges Faced by the independent Public
Broadcaster
The public broadcasting faces the challenges of
the digital era in Europe. Researcher Hruba
(2019) mentioned the problem of increasing
competence in the form of online platforms like
Netflix. They have a significantly higher budget
than any other independent broadcaster and their
services are regulated many times less than those
of traditional broadcasters. Another challenge is
the political pressure on independent public
television broadcasters of Europe (Hruba, 2019).
One of the largest problems of the Ukrainian
Public broadcasting is the severe budget cut.
"Public broadcasting has never received 100% of
state financing since 2017 when The National
Public Television and Radio Company of
Ukraine (NSTU) was registered. However, it is
provided by the Law On Public television and
radio broadcasting of Ukraine" (Zhuk, 2020).
Due to underfunding in 2020, it had to abandon
the planned upgrades, including equipment for
work, as well as had to reduce the cost for
creating content. The lack of financial incentives
in the regional branches and content cut
demotivate the employees to continue working in
the team of the Public television. That is the
reason why many specialists sometimes
including employees with over 20 years of
experience leave the company each year. This is
a significant loss for the broadcaster. Open
sources prove that at least nine employees were
dismissed in Kyiv and the regions along with
leading members of the Suspilne in 2020.
It should be noted that the underfunding of the
Ukrainian Public broadcasting is a decisive,
though, not the only factor that determines its
opportunities and further development. Another
important question is the informational
decentralization that is missing from Public
broadcasting. General management is carried out
from Kyiv. The amount of work is determined
according to the approved conception on
broadcasting for two years. Therefore, to our
mind, these questions should be reviewed.
Perhaps, the experience of European countries
should be considered in regards to organization
of broadcasting in the regions. For example, a
dual system and informational decentralization
are implemented in television and radio
broadcasting in Germany. This means that the
television and radio companies that are
subordinate to the federal lands, air in the
premises of their own regions on a third program.
Respectively, the content of the third channel is
unique for each region and makes its own
percentage contribution to the general broadcast
(Lersch, 2010; Potschka & Golding, 2012;
Dzholos, 2017).
It is regretful that even the reports of the
European partners (Dragomir et al., 2019)
conclude that solutions for the improvement of
the financial situation and cost reduction should
be the optimization of local networks, the sale of
property, and attracting tenants. On the contrary,
it is accentuated that in order to survive, Public
broadcasting must compete with private
broadcasters and interact with its audience much
better, understand its needs and study its interests
in the increasingly difficult digital market. The
European partners state the impossibility of
rejecting state funding and note the absence of
future perspectives if done so. Two scenarios
have been proposed. One of them suggests the
creation of a special fund for financing when
money is obtained through lending radio
frequencies. The other one presumes granted
financing from the general state budget.
However, it is hard to implement such a model.
Since the beginning of 2020, the Public
broadcaster has been developing its own digital
platform of the same name that showed good
results in its first year which is constituted in the
annual report. The Suspilne Novyny (“Suspilne
News”) website has grown ten times larger. It
had 340,000 unique visitors and 670,000 views
in December 2019 and 3.4 M unique visitors and
9.4 M views in December 2020 (PO Detector
media, 2021). Interaction between the Public
broadcaster and the newest media is manifested
through the popularization of content via social
networks being used as an information source (in
particular, obtaining unique photo and video
content); live streaming of television programs,
and uploading separate releases or creating short
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videos for social networks. We have analyzed the
pages of the Transcarpathian Public television in
the social networks for the period from 2019 to
April 2020. Such researches of the popularization
of the programs of the Transcarpathian Public
broadcaster in the social networks were
performed in 2015-2016. This allowed to track
quality changes. In such a manner, the state
television channel was present in the Facebook
(social network) and YouTube (video hosting
platform). It was also present in Twitter and
Google+ until 2018. Pages in Instagram and
Telegram were launched in the end of 2019. The
number of people who liked this page on
Facebook (i.e. subscribed to the page and viewed
its updates in the news feed) was 12,900 in
November 2019 and increased to 21,500 by April
2020. We would like to note that the approach
and methods of content creation in the social
networks changed after the transition from state
channel into Public television. In particular, they
stopped repeatedly publishing fragments of
narrations and posting links to their YouTube
channel. These were practices known from the
page of the previous state broadcaster (Tolochko,
2016). Almost every publication of the page was
organized in the following way: there was an
authentic text in which the main content was
explained (or a piece of news briefly introduced);
the problematic questions raised in the news
release were named; the new topic announced
and its relevance justified; the authors of the
report, its presenters, and the guests of the
program were mentioned; all of this with the
utilization of an acceptable number of smileys
and symbols in order to diversify the text. The
video quality and the improved technical
conditions made it possible to view the video
content directly in the social network and air it in
live stream, comment, and react to it in real time.
Previous researches clarified that, if compared to
the private channels of Transcarpathia, the Public
broadcaster is the most consecutive and
innovative in terms of creating content for
versatile social networks. It is the result of the
work of a separate digital department (Tolochko,
2016).
If we refer to the European experience in
combining traditional broadcasters with the
newest media, we will find out there are
advantages in involving the audience not only in
content viewing but also in its creation at some
point. Modern television media are a space for
active involvement of audience. Syvertsen
(2001) rightly noted that the audience no longer
simply watches TV, it takes part in whatever
happens on the screen, it reacts to the messages
in the social networks, etc.
For instance, the German Public Service
Broadcasting (PSB) tries to integrate social
networks into television (which in this case is
called social television). An example of the
integrated social television in the field of the
German PSB is the Funk content network. The
Internet network is financed by the license fee on
the television and radio. However, the
broadcasting designed prevailingly for the youth
and with its interaction is streamed on YouTube
(Stollfuß, 2019).
Apart from the above-mentioned, another
problem of the Transcarpathian Public television
that requires immediate resolution is fixing the
technical difficulties of signal delivery.
Significant changes took part in the media market
on regional level in 2018-2019 when satellite
signal-receiving was blocked in Ukraine. This
turned out to be a major challenge for the
Transcarpathian television market too. This
problem was especially severe in mountainous
areas, since around 50% of the region's
population was covered by digital broadcasting
in 2018. There were six transmitters of digital
signal in the largest cities and regional centers.
Digital broadcasting networks that used the
existing towers were created in 26 cities, villages
and 11 areas of Transcarpathia. However, they do
not cover the entire territory of Transcarpathia. In
order to establish constant receiving of digital
signal on the entire territory of the region, 66
radio and television towers should be installed
(that used to be retranslators of signals for the
furthest points of the mountainous areas) and the
equipment that remained after analogue signal
has been disconnected (42 towers) should be
modernized. It is important to install new towers
in the mountainous area.
The UA: Zakarpattia television channel
continued to broadcast satellite signals in 2019
since it had not been subject to blocking.
According to the reports of the representatives of
the Council that monitors the technical
peculiarities, the broadcaster leads full
broadcasts on all the multiplex transmitters of the
region. However, it is impossible to tell, if the
number of the viewers increased or decreased
after the transition to digital broadcasting after
satellite broadcasting had been seized, as well as,
what programs of which broadcasters do the
Transcarpathians watch since no suchlike
monitoring had been performed in the region. At
the same time, the quality of signal delivery and
knowing the likes of the audience are important
components of the work of any television
channel, in particular, the Public broadcasting of
Ukraine. This threatens Transcarpathia with
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watching the available programs via satellite,
including the television channels of the
aggressor.
Conclusions
Under the conditions of information threat and
military actions carried out by the Russian
Federation against Ukraine, the role of Public
broadcasting is increasing as well as the role of
the regional television channels that account to
people independent from the government and
business is increasing since they can be used as
platforms for communication. Considering the
multicultural character of Transcarpathia and
other specific factors, the Public broadcaster
should have more rights and opportunities for
content creation in this and any other region.
Such should be advantages in technical
equipment, an extensive network of offices,
enough funding, and independence in decision
making. On the contrary, reducing the amount of
content, the perspective of turning the branches
into correspondent bureaus, standardizing the
programs as claimed by the concept for
developing regional broadcasting put under
threat the very existence of regional Public
broadcasting.
The Public broadcaster needs to take into
consideration the national-historical and mental
peculiarities of the audience in order to be
competitive in the borderland area where the
tradition of listening to and watching foreign
broadcasters by the local residents has been usual
since the last century due to the availability of the
television and radio programs.
Monitoring and control of broadcasting and its
content with the aim of media space protection
and prevention of inter-ethnic conflicts was and
still remains to be important. Apart from this,
subtitling foreign broadcasting is important from
the point of view of establishing good
intercultural communication. A relevant
direction of the activity of the Public broadcaster
is the production of their own informational,
analytical, culturological, educational programs
for the title nation and ethnic minorities.
Attention should be paid to destroying myths and
stereotypes, establishing democratic values,
respect for Ukraine, its history, and culture.
An important step of 2020 was the creation of a
digital platform of the Public broadcaster that led
to the popularization of television content in the
newest media. Such direction of work should be
enforced. In general, the image of the broadcaster
should be taken care of, since researches
demonstrate that only one third of the audience
knows that there is Public broadcasting in
Ukraine after four years have passed since the
launch of the branches and seven since the
introduction of the Public broadcasting service
itself.
The future of the Transcarpathian Public
broadcasting directly depends on the quality of
the digital broadcasting in the region, the
coverage of which remains unsatisfying in the
mountainous area where there is a severe need in
installing additional television towers. Utilizing
the resources of radio and television towers and
the possibilities of providers of program services
can be promising. A strict information strategy
should be developed in this field. It needs to take
into consideration the peculiarity of
Transcarpathia as a region and the main
challenges waiting here. Due to the lack of
information provision, the Transcarpathians
might continue compensating for this
information gap via the mass media of foreign
countries that is especially dangerous during the
period of military instability and outer threats.
Therefore, it is important that the
Transcarpathian regional television preserved its
own specificity (in particular, broadcasting for
ethnic groups), deepened it, and simultaneously
understood the needs of its audience and took
them into consideration while producing
television programs. Researching the stages of
the establishment and development of the
audiovisual space of Ukraine's western
borderland region proves a lasting tradition of
polynational broadcasting. Under a competent
strategy, the latter can play a significant part in
preventing interethnic conflicts, information
threats and facilitate Ukraine's establishment as a
democratic legal multinational country, a full-
right member to be of the European Union.
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