TV broadcaster and polling organization help Ukraine's citizens learn about themselves (10/11/98)

TV broadcaster and polling organization help Ukraine's citizens learn about themselves

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - Ukrainians are learning more about themselves and what interests and ails their countrymen with the help of two private enterprises: a television broadcasting company, Studio 1+1, and a leading polling organization, the Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

The directors of both enterprises - Oleksander Rodniansky, general director of Studio 1+1, and Ilko Kucheriv, foundation director - spoke about their work during a roundtable discussion on September 21 here at the Ukrainian Embassy, sponsored by The Washington Group in cooperation with the Kennan Institute.

As moderator Nadia Diuk of the National Endowment for Democracy described him, Mr. Rodniansky, has been "on the cutting edge" of efforts to make the media in Ukraine "truly independent," with full freedom of expression and by providing high quality news and information as well as entertainment programs to the public.

When Mr. Kucheriv started the Democratic Initiatives Foundation in 1992, there was no independent, non-governmental opinion polling being done in Ukraine. Since then, the foundation has conducted important polls in Ukraine's two parliamentary elections and one presidential election as well as on numerous other important issues. In effect, as Dr. Diuk put it, Mr. Kucheriv's organization has been researching and analyzing "what the Ukrainian population really thinks" and by doing so, "keeping the government honest."

Mr. Rodniansky recalled that when Studio 1+1 got started three years ago as a U.S.-Ukrainian joint venture, it had a handful of people and hardly any audience. Today it employs 550 people and has more than a 30 percent audience share, with youthful average age of 35 - compared to 45 for its main competitor, the government national station UT-1, and 47 for the Russian-Ukrainian joint venture TV.

This large, and especially youthful audience is a source of optimism, he said. "And we think that's not bad for a Ukrainian-speaking channel, which started as a channel one and a half years ago," he added.

When Studio 1+1 initially started as a production company in 1995, UT-1, which had 7 percent audience share at that time, hired it to produce six hours of mostly prime-time programming, with the stipulation that it raise UT-1's audience share. ORT, at the time the main Russian channel, then had about 70 percent of the audience, he said.

Within 18 months, Studio 1+1 raised that audience share to a top-rated 35 percent, and in 1997 it competed for and received its own outlet on UT-2, the former Russian TV station.

Studio 1+1 programming, which includes Ukrainian-language entertainment shows and Ukrainian-dubbed movies and series, has many innovative - for Ukraine - news, opinion and documentary programs.

It scored a "first" in airing a pre-election debate between parliamentary election candidates earlier this year - an experiment that was not fully appreciated by some candidates, Mr. Rodniansky said.

And it had another "first" when it joined forces with the Democratic Initiatives Foundation for a live election-night coverage of the March parliamentary election, with the Democratic Initiatives Foundation providing nationwide exit polling results to gauge election returns.

It was the first such effort anywhere in the former Soviet Union, Mr. Kucheriv said, and its accuracy was upheld when the Central Election Committee announced the election results a few days later.

Mr. Kucheriv is now doing further analysis of these results as a fellow at the Kennan Institute in Washington.

The Democratic Initiatives Foundation not only gathers and analyzes opinion data, but also focuses on educating the public about their results through press briefings, seminars, conferences and the publication of a journal and books. The objective, Mr. Kucheriv said, is to initiate a dialogue and debate on major issues.

The foundation thus far has conducted 16 polls covering many of the most important issues facing Ukraine as a nation, he said, and their results have been published in the Ukrainian media as well as abroad: in the Washington Post, Globe and Mail, Financial Times and The Ukrainian Weekly.

Mr. Kucheriv said his organization is a good example of how Western ideas can work in Ukraine, with the cooperation and assistance of Western partners and advisors.

Studio 1+1 is a part of Central European Media Enterprises, the most successful media enterprise in Central and Eastern Europe, with stations in the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia, as well as Ukraine, Mr. Rodniansky said. It is a public enterprise, with no hidden owners, he added.

Asked about the lack of Ukrainian-language media products in Ukraine - as well as the sorry state of the language used on some of them - Mr. Rodniansky said Studio 1+1 devotes a lot of attention to the level of the Ukrainian used in its programming. In general, he said, getting a large part of the population to switch from Russian to Ukrainian is not easy when some 40 percent of Ukrainians have family ties in Russia.

But "it's only a matter of time," he added, when the younger generation grows up in a Ukrainian-speaking environment. And he pointed to the growing success of his Ukrainian-language station, at the expense of his Russian-language competitors, as an indication of how the language issue is being resolved.

Before starting Studio 1+1 in 1995, Mr. Rodniansky spent the early 1990s working in the film industry in Germany, where he produced such international award-winning documentaries as "The Mission of Raoul Wallenberg" and "Farewell to the USSR."

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