Radio Canada International's Ukrainian service faces possible cuts or elimination (01/04/04)

Radio Canada International's Ukrainian service faces possible cuts or elimination

by Christopher Guly
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

OTTAWA - Radio Canada International's Ukrainian-language service could face having its air time reduced by half to 15 minutes or cut completely. A highly placed source told The Ukrainian Weekly that a decision to make any changes or not is expected by mid-January.

The 51-year-old Ukrainian-language service has been under review since September when RCI officials began looking at ways to "reposition" Canada's publicly funded international radio network.

"They're rethinking to which regions they should broadcast and to which they should not," said the source.

RCI officials said there would be changes in the sections, though it's unclear how this would affect the Ukrainian service.

Though one of the oldest RCI services, the Ukrainian section is the only one of the seven (which also includes English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian) that is not an official United Nations language and which has a narrow geographic reach in targeting one country, namely Ukraine.

"But every time the question comes up, 'Why Ukrainian?' " said the source, it's explained that Canada has a very special relationship and partnership with Ukraine that it doesn't have with other countries, that the Canadian government is committed to help Ukraine establish a democratic society, as well as the fact that Canada has over one million residents who are of Ukrainian descent.

Among the RCI's five foreign-language sections (excluding English and French), each of which has 30-minute broadcasting blocks daily, the Ukrainian section is perceived to have a good distribution system.

Its twice-daily information program is broadcast at 6:30 p.m. (only on short-wave, Ukrainian time) and repeated at 7 p.m. (Ukrainian time) also on the third channel of Ukraine's national radio network, reaching all together a potential audience of two million listeners.

The RCI Ukrainian service has also collaborated with its Ukrainian radio partner on programs, including a six-part, 20-minute series on Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) federal government-funded initiatives in Ukraine - projects that get little attention in either Ukraine or Canada.

Ironically, it will now be up to the Department of Foreign Affairs, which oversees CIDA's budget and shares an administrative role with the Department of Canadian Heritage over RCI, to determine the ultimate fate of the Ukrainian service.

The Winnipeg-based Ukrainian Canadian Congress has already contacted Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham and RCI director Jean Larin and asked them to ensure that the Ukrainian service "remains intact."

In a letter to Mr. Graham, UCC Executive Director Ostap Skrypnyk said the Ukrainian section "plays an important role in projecting Canadian values to Eastern Europe and in creating civil society in Ukraine," and is "an integral aspect" of Canada's assistance to Ukraine "and should be viewed as part and parcel of Canada's diverse relationship with Ukraine."

To Mr. Larin, Mr. Skrypnyk wrote: "Cutting back or eliminating the Ukrainian language section at RCI would be a mistake and would go against the goals that the Canadian public wishes RCI to pursue."

Supporters of RCI's Ukrainian service say it provides Ukrainian listeners with programming they might not otherwise hear. For instance in 2003, the Ukrainian section featured interviews with former Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's former deputy prime minister and now one of the country's leading opposition leaders, both of whom find it hard to get on the Ukrainian airwaves at home.

Though the future of RCI's Ukrainian service remains uncertain, the section has already shrunk in size over the past decade.

Ten years ago, the Ukrainian news and current events program had four full-time employees and 45 minutes of daily air time. It briefly expanded to five staff members and a daily 60 minute time slot, before being cut in half to its current 30 minutes about two years ago.

And while four people work in the Ukrainian section, only two of them are full-time announcer-producers: Lina Gavrilova, who heads the section, and Luba Demko. The others are casual employees, who could easily be cut should the ax fall on the service in the coming weeks.

But as RCI marks its 60th anniversary in 2004, its Ukrainian audience could play a role in keeping the Canadian-made service alive.

When it was revealed that RCI itself was under threat of closing in 1995 with employees receiving pink slips, listeners, including those from Ukraine, bombarded Foreign Affairs with letters.

This time, the Ukrainian section is keeping mum about its future until a final decision is reached.

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