Ukrainian Broadcasters Are Looking to Co-Produce TV Series With The EU

As part of the ongoing Russian invasion into Ukrainian regions of Crimea & Donbas the ecomomic ties with Russia continue to fall apart.The fact is that Ukraine was a lucrative market massively dominated by Russian content-makers. Actualy that used to be a monopoly.

Four major broadcasters used to pay $70-120 000 USD for an episode of a typical Russian series while the production itself usually was esimated as $50-100 000 USD. That means that the Ukrainian market was solely paying off the production of most of Russian content while the Russian market was giving the producers a tremendous surplus.

This scheme is about to change and may criss-cross the comfortable Russian-orginated propaganda inflow into Ukriane. After the Crimea annexation one of the biggest TV holdings of Ukriane 1+1 decided to withdraw from broadcasting Russian-made TV series wich are mostly dealing with the subjucts like Russian army, Russian police, Russian spec-ops and -surprise! – russian Mafia (‘bratva’, or ‘brothers’ circle’).

Now, after things are starting being called by their proper names the National council for TV & Radio has issued a recommendation for all the broadcasters to support 1+1 initiative and withdraw from broadcasting Russian militaris content (http://nrada.gov.ua/ua/news/radanews/22996.html). And chanses are that other TV holdings will join initiative.

With these chnages the huge demand for the new content is born within Ukrainian market which is not easy to satisfy. The deals in the industry often made for several years in advance and withdrawal from Russian content will cause financial loses. The good thing is that the own production arms of each TV holding as well as independent production companies will have to diversify their work and will inevitable find the way to co-produce TV content with the neighbouring European countries, Turkey, Israel, Canada and, perhaps, the US.

The task is not easy as there is a lack of knowledge and production ties but there is a financial capabilities of the TV holdings and a will to research the new ways. Ukraine Film Office will assist with establishing the production partnerships for the TV market. For any issues regarding the TV Series co-production please refer us at the Contacts.