Opposition Gets More TV Publicity Than Pro-government Parties in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine, October 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

The volumes of broadcasting time on major national TV channels during the period of September 24 - October 21, 2012, allocated for the opposition representatives exceeded broadcasting time used by the state authorities and the Party of Regions by 53 percent. Such statement has been released by the State Committee for television and radio broadcasting of Ukraine (DerzhKomTeleRadio) after having monitored eight major TV channels, which represent 64 percent share of the TV audience in Ukraine.

DerzhKomTeleRadio website: http://comin.kmu.gov.ua/control/en/publish/article?art_id=96496&cat_id=95722

DerzhKomTeleRadio of Ukraine has been using the following monitoring criteria: number of news items and their duration (runtime) during prime time; volume of presence (runtime) of elections participants on the most popular TV shows; and number of news items and duration (runtime) of airtime dedicated to the news coverage of the state authorities' activities.

The opposition, placed 1.76 times more direct political advertising than the pro-government Party of Regions (83 hours  vs. 47 hours). As far as the news coverage the opposition exceeded the Party of Regions both by runtime - 3.1 times (9 hours vs. 3 hours), as well as by the number of the news items - 4.1 times (415 vs. 101). The amount of time the opposition was represented on the talk-shows exceeds that of the pro-government party by 3.77 times (17 hours vs. 4 hours). Finally, the number of news items covering activities of the state authorities reached 559 with the total runtime of over 16 hours.

DerzhKomTeleRadio states that if compared the duration of TV airtime of the opposition surpasses that of the Party of Regions combined with state authorities by approximately 53 percent (110 hours vs. 72 hours).

According to DerzhKomTeleRadio opposition includes Batkivshchyna party headed by imprisoned ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) headed by the current WBC world heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, "Ukraina Vpered" - headed by Natalia Korolevska, "Svoboda" - a far-right nationalist political party, "Our Ukraine" -  center-right political party headed by the ex-president of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko, and the Radical Party.

Ukraine will hold parliamentary elections on October 28, 2012