Telethon: the Government broadcasts the position of “servants of the people” to citizens at the expense of the budget
8 April 2025 19:04
representatives of the Servant of the People faction have 73% of all “deputy” broadcasts at the telethon, while they make up only 57% of the total number of MPs in parliament. This is evidenced by the results ofthe Detector Media monitoring conducted on March 31, April 1 and 4, 2025, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
During this period, MPs from the ruling Servant of the People party had an absolute majority of airtime – 159 broadcasts on all channels participating in the telethon, which is almost 73% of the total number of “deputy” broadcasts. If we add to this figure the airtime of formally non-factional politicians delegated by the Servant of the People, such as the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk (1 airtime on Rada TV channel) and the Vice Speaker Oleksandr Korniyenko (8 airtime on Rada, 1 1 and We Are Ukraine TV channels), the share of pro-government MPs increases to 168 airtime or almost 77%.
The second most represented faction is “Batkivshchyna” with 21 broadcasts, which is slightly more than 9.5% of the total. Taking into account one airing of formally non-factional, but delegated by “Batkivshchyna” Vice Speaker Olena Kondratiuk, the indicator of this political force increases to 22 airings or 10%.
The parliamentary groups “For the Future” and “Dovira” received equal representation – 9 airings each, which is 4% of the total. Among the truly non-factional MPs, all 8 broadcasts belonged to Oksana Savchuk, and all of them were on TV channel “Rada”.
The Voice faction was represented in the TV marathon only 4 times during the quarter, which is less than 2% of the total number of broadcasts. The most critical of the authorities and the second largest faction, “European Solidarity”, was not represented in the guest studios of the telethon at all.
The situation was somewhat different on PBC’s First Channel. Although representatives of “Servant of the People” also dominated with 126 broadcasts (there were 6 additional invitations that were not realized), the format of the broadcasts was mostly discussion-based. In such studios, opponents from the opposition factions were invited to join the government representatives. At the same time, more than half of the opposition politicians in the channel’s studios were representatives of “European Solidarity” (83 times), representatives of “Voice” were invited 48 times, and “Batkivshchyna” – 37 times.
Thus, the monitoring revealed a significant imbalance in the representation of political forces on the air of the telethon, with the ruling party “Servant of the People” dominating. The faction currently has 231 seats out of 400 in the parliament, which makes up 57% of the parliament, but received 73% of the airtime during the telethon.
How much does the “United News” telethon cost?
In 2024, UAH 843 million was spent from the state budget to create and broadcast the United News and FreeDom telethons. Of this amount, UAH 699 million was spent on the production of United News, and UAH 144 million on FreeDom. In 2023, a total of UAH 842 million was spent on marathons.
Two customers bought the production of marathons:
- SE “Parliamentary TV Channel “Rada” vs.
- SE “Multimedia Platform of Foreign Broadcasting of Ukraine”, which is managed by the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy;
The following TV channels received orders for the production of telethons: “Inter, ICTV, 1 1, We Are Ukraine, and Kinokit LLC.
