Ukrainian Broadcasting on 

Deutsche Welle-Radio: Two Priorities  

Until recently, Ukrainian radio listeners have associated Deutsche-Welle Radio (DW-Radio) exclusively with its Russian editorial office, which has been broadcasting since 1962. The informational policy of DW-Radio towards the USSR, like that of Voice of America (VoA) and Radio Freedom (RF), consisted of acting as an alternative to Soviet propaganda. However, the administration of DW-Radio directed its Russian editorial staff to broadcast across the USSR, because DW-Radio assumed that local audiences would be able to understand Russian and did not deem it necessary to create programs in other national languages. This policy was in contrast to the one at VoA and RF, which began broadcasting in Ukrainian in December 1949 and August 1954 respectively (as well as broadcasting in many other languages spoken throughout the Soviet Union),. The BBC has also provided exceptional broadcasting in Russian, though the subject matter, as on DW-RADIO, has always been related to the nation receiving the broadcasts. The Ukrainian BBC service began broadcasting in June of 1992. The organization very quickly became an effective competitor in the Ukrainian language radio market, along with VoA and RF.
The idea of creating Ukrainian broadcasts on DW-Radio first began gaining support in 1998-1999, the very years when the USA began to phase out Ukrainian services of VoA and RF. In Ukraine, in the meantime, rumors were spreading. Within a year, DW-Radio began Ukrainian broadcasts. Shortly before this happened, DW-Radio stopped broadcasting in Czech, Hungarian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Japanese. Ukrainian broadcast was first put on air in March of 2000. 
"We appeared in Ukraine because Germany is interested in Ukraine," says the DW-Radio Ukrainian Broadcast Editor-in-chief, Ute Scheffer. "Germany treats Ukraine as a partner. By the way, we began our work at a time when the German government had adopted a very frugal attitude towards culture expenses and was shortening other programs. This testifies that Germany is interested in establishing closer relations with Ukraine," Scheffer said. "It is in line with this interest that the concept of new [Ukrainian,] Polish, and Russian broadcasts, to be created and edited in the eastern-European editorial office of DW-Radio, was designed. Ukrainian Radio partners were given only one question: "What broadcasts of DW-Radio would you like to transmit for your listeners?" This was a fruitful question indeed: thanks to the opinion poll, it was possible to design Ukrainian broadcast so that they would meet potential listeners' needs. 
In the beginning Ukrainian broadcasts were put on air for 15 minutes 5 times a week. However, since November of 2001, daily broadcasting time has increased to 30 minutes, and since March of 2002, six radio magazines have been broadcast on weekends (alongside international newscasts). Five editors and 15 regional correspondents create the Ukrainian broadcasts. In the last four years, the main priorities have become evident in the Ukrainian program on DW-Radio. The first is "Region-oriented News" - broadcasting under the rubric "News from Ukraine." This Ukrainian program on DW-Radio is intended to shed light on important regional events and problems that radically differ from what the regional media highlights. This can act as a helpful counterweight against regional media sources, because these media sources are often controlled by local authorities and work to create a positive image for those authorities. For instance, there are no Kharkiv mass media outlets that do not depend on the local powers-that-be. Therefore, the principle of "Region-oriented news, that is, "reporting from a region for a region" becomes especially important. This kind of reporting always takes into account several viewpoints concerning an event and demands that a reporter compose a story so that his or her likings or preferences do not have the slightest influence. 
The Kharkiv example includes some circumstances which are illustrative of the problems encountered for DW-Radio in Ukraine. For various reasons, Kharkiv remains one of the few Ukrainian regional centers where local FM-stations do not transmit Ukrainian services of foreign broadcasting stations. As early as 1993, Volodymir Biliaiv, the Director of the VoA Ukrainian department, tried to establish retransmission in Kharkiv. However, he got similar responses from the regional TV-radio Company Director Anatolyi Emecz and private Radio Director Vladlen Lytvynenko: "we don't Ukrainian-speaking listeners here". In October of 2002, Ute Sheffer visited Kharkiv on behalf of DW-Radio, and got the same response. 
In spite of the attention DW-Radio pays to regional events, Ukrainian listeners perceive it, first and foremost, as the voice of Western Europe and the European Union. 

This means that "Europe-oriented News" can be considered the second priority for DW-Radio Ukrainian broadcasting. Ukrainians are highly interested to know about Europe. The purpose of Ukrainian programming on DW-Radio is to satisfy this interest by working according to the principle "Europe, Germany - First-Hand Information." What do Europeans think of Ukraine? The answer can be found in reviews of the European press, interviews with leading European politicians and interviews with experts. The Ukrainian programming of DW-Radio tries to shed light on all relevant topics that somehow concern Ukraine and the European Union. Special emphasis is placed on subject-matter that concerns bilateral relations between Ukraine and other European countries (economic, cultural and others). 
DW-Radio is a typical public radio in that it is financed by taxpayer money and is has significant independence in conducting its informational policy. However, it is possible to see how local Ukrainian authorities sometimes attempt to influence the partners working with the Ukrainian DW-Radio. In every region, local authorities have their own means of doing this. For example, in Kyiv they simply closed down the FM-station. "Radio Continent," which retransmitted Ukrainian programming. DW-Radio, unlike the previously mentioned BBC or RF, has not created its own branch in Kyiv, and does not consider this to be an option. Having your broadcasting center far away has its own advantages, especially if someone tries to exert pressure on you. Long distance guarantees that no shameful events will happen at DW-Radio like the one at RF, in which the Ex-Director of the Kyiv Branch, Hanna Stecziv, went on to a job with the government authorities. 
In response to local pressure in Ukraine, Germany insists on two things. First, a country which strives to become a worthy member of the European Commonweath, must create democratic and pro-European laws concerning mass-media and freedom of speech, and second, it must adhere to them. DW-Radio responds that despite local pressure, if the quantity of listeners tuning in to the Ukrainian program increases enough to warrant a Kyiv branch of DW-Radio, one will be opened.
Deutsche Welle TV-Radio Company, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on May 3, 2003, is (along with the BBC, VoA, Voice of Russia and Radio French International) one of the world's biggest radio stations. Its anniversary year budget was 285 million Euros. That same year, Deutsche Welle changed the location of its office by moving from Cologne to Bonne, a former temporary capital of the German Democratic Republic. Today, it has the most up-to-date broadcasting station in Europe, housed in a former Bundestag building (the deputies left for the capital in Berlin). DW-Radio broadcasts programs in 29 languages including German, and the Ukrainian broadcast is one of the "youngest" and shortest of them. By way of comparison, the Russian broadcast lasted 60 minutes at its inception. Today it is used in programs for parts of the Russian Federation in Europe, Central-Asia, and the Caucuses and is on air for 9 hours. In spite of all obstacles, the Ukrainian broadcast has already gained a base of devoted listeners, has settled on a concept, and has created its own web page: www2.dw-world.de/ukrainian 

Vladyslav Pronenko, 
staff correspondent of Ukrainian 
Broadcasting for DW-Radio in Kharkiv.