Ukraine: Council to tax global television networks, require Ukrainian

[Harold Schiffman]

Forwarded From  <edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu>


Source:  http://www.kyivpost.com/business/general/28774/

Council to tax global television networks, require Ukrainian
by Anna Poludenko, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Apr 03 2008, 02:05
(c) KP Media

Your English-language BBC News may soon be in Ukrainian.

All international channels re-broadcasting into Ukraine must provide a
Ukrainian language translation, according to a late February amendment
adopted by Ukraine's National Television and Radio Broadcasting
Council.

In addition, the amendment requires all international channels to open
a representative office in the country and pay taxes based on the
channel's advertising revenue.

It still needs approval from Ukraine's parliament, and may face
further adjustments within the council.

But cable television companies and radio and television announcers
criticized the amendment, alleging the new regulation violates the
Constitution's guarantee to direct information access.

"It is clear this isn't about the language quality of the content
broadcasted on the air or on cable," said Olha Bolshakova, head of the
legal center for the Independent Association of Television and Radio
Announcers.

In fact, English ­language television in Ukraine may become a casualty
of Russian television networks abusing the Ukrainian airwaves, she
said.

"Such discussions are a response to the extremely tendentious coverage
of elections in Ukraine by Russian channels that bordered on hidden
agitation."

Bolshakova referred to the coverage of Ukrainian politics by Russian
networks, which were re­broadcast in Ukraine as part of a package of
international channels on cable television.

For example, during Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004, Russian TV
channel NTV broadcasted empty streets, reporting that no one in the
country supported it.

In 2006, a journalist from Russian RTR network reported there were
secret US Central Intelligence Agency jails in the Kyiv oblast, which
was later refuted by the government.

Politicians from the pro­presidential Our Ukraine­ People's Self­
Defense Bloc supported the council's move.
The council should have the right to influence the content of
international channels that "allow anti­-Ukrainian announcements in
news coverage," said Yuriy Stets, an Our Ukraine­ People's Self­
Defense deputy and secretary of the Parliamentary Committee for
Freedom of Speech and Information.

The council will decide on how to implement the changes, but
Bolshakova called the language amendment "unrealistic" for
implementation.

Subtitling the television programs for retransmission will be
"extremely expensive" and cable companies will be forced to raise
fees, she said.

The council did not respond to requests for comment from the Post.

In all likelihood, international channels like the British
Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) or the Discovery Channel, two
English­-language channels retransmitted in Ukraine, would have to
open offices in the country to do the language adaptation and
commercial filling, said the Cable Television Union of Ukraine.

Making money through taxing advertising profit is the real aim behind
the council's new legislation, said Yulia Molchanova, the Union's
chief.

The council is aiming "to allow for money from commercials to pass
through a single set of hands" to control advertising revenues, she
said.

"At the last council session, a council representative said that this
is more of an advertising issue than a language one," she said.

The council wants to make international channels broadcasted in
Ukraine pay national taxes, Stets said. Taxes from commercials on
international channels are paid in the countries from where they
broadcast, not in Ukraine where they are re­transmitted.


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