Zurab Alasania. How to kill the central TV channel?

On August 10, the First National TV channel held a press conference at which it spoke about the future of “public television” in Ukraine. What caught my eye was that this press conference was hosted by Daria Yurovskaya, first deputy general director of Zurab Alasania. Zurab Grigorievich himself did not appear at the press conference, although he loves to talk about public television. He wrote about this on his Facebook so often that many of his friends unfollowed news from his account. In addition, he has spent the last two years talking about his concept of public television to all, or almost all, publications. And so, I didn’t come to the press press. Why? Maybe because he changed his values ​​and decided to become a humble person? Or maybe because the channel is in such a deplorable state and has fallen in ratings so much that any normal person would simply be ashamed to talk about it, and journalists would not fail to take this opportunity to bring their “colleague” down with their questions.

The beginning of a long journey

How did it all start beautifully? In the wake of the revolution of dignity, a general director came to the channel that UT-1 had never seen in its entire history. Handsome, Georgian, covered in tattoos, informal. Many then succumbed to this charm. Although serious media experts even then were perplexed why a person without any experience was appointed to manage such a complex conglomerate as the National Television Company. Well, yes, it seems he was a journalist in Kharkov and even for some time when Avakov ruled the city (Read more about him: Arsen Avakov: criminal past of the Minister of Internal Affairs), managed a regional television company. This experience is, to put it mildly, not enough to become at the helm of a central TV channel. Well, it’s clear that Avakov and Yatsenyuk installed their man. But, somehow, this person of theirs must understand at least something about television… In general, normal experts somehow did not immediately believe in the effectiveness of such an appointment.

First steps

And how they looked into the water. Having declared war on corruption and swearing his love for Ukraine, Zurab took on as his first deputy Alexander Liev, the former Minister of Tourism of Crimea, who had been caught taking bribes and, during the occupation, made anti-Ukrainian statements. Having declared his European values, he abandoned the Eurovision Song Contest, which was also stupid, since this is the highest-rated project of the National Television Company in its entire history. In addition, he terminated the contract with Euronews signed under the “evil ownership”. Along the way, he abandoned the World Cup. And in the first six months, he closed about 30 projects of the TV channel.

For the first time in the history of UT-1, its employees were sent on unpaid leave, and they were forced to write statements about it. The TV channel closed the buffet, and this despite the fact that the channel is located in a place where there is physically no cafe in the area and people simply have nowhere to drink coffee. His Crimean colleagues always said that Liev was not capable of anything other than self-PR and perceived him as a kind of clown from the authorities. And now Liev spends 99% of his working time on self-PR.

A little about freedom of speech

The love for freedom of speech in the understanding of the director of UT-1 is well illustrated by the conflict with Savik Shuster. Among television people, Shuster is considered a completely “uncontrollable” person. In the sense that no one has the right to interfere with his editorial policy and dictate topics to him. Alasania tried to intervene, and when it didn’t work, he removed Shuster’s program from the air. Savik was not injured; soon his project was already aired on TV channel 112.

But the First National lost a lot in terms of viewing figures; Shuster’s program was rating-generating. The second illustration is a conflict with the former editor-in-chief of news broadcasting Svetlana Kolyada. In a conversation with Medianyanya, she said that “ordered” stories appeared on the channel, the so-called “jeans” – stories that are custom-made and posted for money. Moreover, the “order” was both commercial and political. These are the standards of freedom of speech in the understanding of Zurab Alasania.

Money, money

But making money on jeans is not the only way to earn money for Zurab Grigorievich. The fact is that the National Television Company owns a huge television center building on Melnikova 42 in Kyiv. Its premises had been rented out before, but they were rented out to specialized television companies. So this building housed the television company “1+1”, and now there are the television companies “Era” and “ESG”, various production houses and representative offices of foreign television companies. But it was under Alasania and, as employees say, at the instigation of Liev, that they began to evict NTKU workers and rent out the premises to just anyone – people who had nothing to do with television production.

In addition, the television company ordered a study of television audiences for 1.77 million hryvnia. This shocked the entire media community, since such research usually costs several orders of magnitude less. And the general director’s salary is not bad, namely 83,000 hryvnia per month. One of the employees accidentally found a salary slip in the elevator and there was exactly that amount. For reference, the average salary of an employee of the First National is 2,300 hryvnia. At the same time, their salaries are constantly being cut, bonuses are being removed, and office phones are being turned off. In a word, they create all the conditions for people to leave “of their own free will,” and those who do not take such measures are fired for the slightest offense and “set aside” for layoffs.

Results

What’s happening at the First National today? People are fleeing the channel; journalist Irina Romaliyskaya recently quit. Before this, editor Svetlana Kolyada and producer Larisa Drozdova left. Moreover, the best leave – those who have somewhere to go. In addition to people, all rating projects were removed from the TV channel or left. At the same time, the technical base has practically not been updated since Benckendorf’s leadership of the channel, and content has not been purchased. And all this on the eve of the new season, when all other TV channels will surprise the viewer with premium projects. As a result of all of the above, the channel is rapidly losing its position. If during the time of Yanukovych the channel did not fall below seventh place in the rating of Ukrainian channels, but was often in the top five, now its place is fifteenth to seventeenth, and periodically it falls out of the top twenty. And this despite the fact that the channel has almost 100% coverage in Ukraine. That is, if previously the channel competed with Inter, 1+1, STB, Novy. Now its competitors are OTV, K2, Enter Film, Plus Plus and other small niche channels. So the idea of ​​Public Television died in its very bud. If you are watched by less than one million viewers out of an audience of almost forty million in Ukraine, what impact on the public can we talk about? And judging by the behavior of Zurab Grigorievich, despite such a deplorable situation of the channel, he feels very confident. Employees say that at every meeting Alasania likes most of all to throw mud at… the president, Petro Poroshenko. He calls him a “fat broiler” and other words that are strange to hear from the general director of the TV channel, and indeed from an intelligent person. But, apparently, he thinks that Avakov is his reliable roof and will cover him in any case.

Well what can I say? The idea of ​​Public Television itself was very good. But, as sad as it is to report this, greed and unprofessionalism won. In other words, Zurab Alasania and his team won.

Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info