Television Wars

The Era Company has changed almost all its executives. As asserts Vasyl Klymchuk, who now controls the entire screen time of the programs Good Morning and Good Night, Ukraine, this is only the reorganization of a private company. But according to editor-in-chief Vitaly Lukyanenko and chief producer Olha Kysla, who are now outside Era's new table of organization, no complaints about their creative and professional work had ever been raised. Moreover, the night channel still preserves the concepts worked out by the former executives, the people (including the presenters) who implement them, and even the flow chart. In other words, we are witnessing only a change of personalities.

As we know, any decision in the television business are never based on economic reasons alone. Thus one can only assume the television space is being actively carved up by certain forces that are not only close to the President but also vying with each other for a bigger share of both the commercial pie and the political influence. Of course, total purging of the nation's television from all more or less independently thinking and still unsubdued individuals might seem strange. After all, as chairman of the Ukrainian Union of Journalists Ihor Lubchenko recently told The Day, when those who are now setting the new rules of the game on the information market relinquish power, they will be able only to express their opinion in a house-maintenance office wall newspaper if the office director allows them to... But when statesmen are unable, for example, to protect the national media for so many years from the quite certain methods of stifling dissidents by means of excessively high judgments in lawsuits, then is there any logic of action in the name of state (and not personal) interests at all?

But what is more symptomatic is not the actions of the powers-that-be but the reaction of journalists themselves. Not a single national channel has said a word about unprecedented developments concerning STB. 1+1 was the only station which reported in a few words about the cancellation of contract between ICTV and the Vikna Agency. Not a single national channel has supported the appeal of STB journalists to the President to defend their right to engage in professional activities without fearing for the life of themselves and their families. Only the Dossier program (UT-1) showed an item on the murder of Deineka, pushing through one possible version, almost pointing an accusing finger at a specific oligarch who might allegedly be involved in the affair. We would like to believe this was done out of solidarity with their STB colleagues, although, in the words of Mr. Kniazhytsky, they were again set up, being drawn into the squabbles between various financial and political clans.

What makes channel executives react so to the mayhem surrounding adjacent television companies? What makes them keep silent? They hardly gloat over the woes in their rival's house. Then what? Ban by the channel's true owners? But in this case it still reinforces the idea of our TV moguls' nefarious involvement in the total war of all against all (code-named Zlahoda). Fear? But is corporate solidarity not a duty of professionals who know that journalism is a job that requires a certain civic courage?