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Alert

State-run television station cancels popular public affairs talk show following broadcast featuring opposition leaders

(IMI/IFEX) - The following is a statement from IMI, an interim member of IFEX:

Political talk show banned at UT-1: "This is political decision"

The main state-run television channel, UT-1, has cancelled a political debate programme called "Toloka". Program producer Victor Pavlyuk told IMI that UT-1 President Vitaliy Dokalenko informed him of the decision on 20 March 2007, the same day his show was taken off air.

The station also cancelled a planned repeat broadcast of the programme aired on the evening of 19 March, which featured opposition leaders Youlia Timoshenko of the political alliance BYUT and Vyacheslav Kyrilenko of the parliamentary faction Our Ukraine.

"'Toloka' is the only political talk show on the First National channel," Pavlyuk said. The programme has been running for a year without facing any pressure from anyone until 20 March, he added. The programme producer believes that the cancellation is linked to Timoshenko and Kirilenko's speeches on the show.

"Obviously, a hard time is coming for press freedom in Ukraine," Pavlyuk told IMI.

UT-1 President Dokalenko confirmed the cancellation of "Toloka", adding that there had been no pressure from the government. He said the program was cancelled because of the lack of professionalism of the anchorperson.

"I had some very strong complaints on how the programme was made, the way the anchorman was hosting, how the interactive communication was set. I myself had tried to call both telephone numbers provided, but it was impossible to get through," Dokalenko said.

Earlier, representatives of the anti-crisis coalition had criticized UT-1 and its editorial policy; First Vice-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Parliamentary Speaker Oleksandr Moroz, especially, had berated the television channel.

On the row over the cancellation of "Toloka", Member of Parliament and former journalist Andriy Shevchenko said: "This is an absurd setback, in an epoch of temnyks (government instructions to the media) and censorship. I've been speaking to Vitaliy Dokalenko . . . and his arguments could not convince me. He said the program was cancelled because the anchorman was unprofessional. Since people say such things about the television channel - that you could say the same for every programme on the channel - I think this is a bad explanation. Especially since it comes from the head of the company, about his vice-president, Victor Pavlenko, whose program invariably had high ratings compared with others on the First National channel."

Shevchenko claimed the cancellation was a political decision prompted by the high ratings obtained for the Timoshenko and Kirilenko broadcast.

"I know for sure, the airing of this session has exasperated a lot of people in Party of Regions. As for me, my doubt is concerning only one question: Who was the person who scolded Dokalenko?" he said.