Despite the war’s constant threat to investment plans, production volume is on the increase and new channel launches are afoot at Ukraine’s 1+1 Media, says CEO Yaroslav Pakholchuk.
Yaroslav Pakholchuk, CEO of the Kyiv-headquartered broadcaster 1+1 Media, has to think hard when asked what has changed for the company he runs since last being interviewed by C21 in April 2022. Back then, the war with Russia was less than two months in, and Pakholchuk believed – like many Ukrainians – that it would be over soon.
Yaroslav Pakholchuk
“Two years is a long time. Most of us expected this [war] was for a short period – weeks or months – and like most companies we thought we need to survive and wait until the end,” he recalls. “But now it’s two years. We do not know when the end is coming. At the same time, life is going on.”
Conversely, Pakholchuk doesn’t need to think long about what the most important issue is facing him right now. As CEO of one of the largest media owners in Eastern Europe, the answer requires no hesitation: “Is it the right time to start investment? Or do we still need to wait? A rocket could land at any time, and we could lose everything immediately. So that’s the most difficult question,” he explains.
Given the unpredictability of war, Pakholchuk and his team are, for the time being, opting for a cautious approach when it comes to investment. “We try somehow to balance it. For example, we do not allow ourselves to take loans, to generate some new obligations. So, we just reinvest our own resources,” he says.
There are, of course, other huge challenges keeping the CEO awake at night, not least around his staff’s wellbeing. “We try to support people as much as we can, not only with stable salaries and with more or less normal life conditions, but with psychological support,” he explains.
Holding on to staff is getting harder and harder, however, as more are conscripted into the army. There was a time when the case could be made to hold on to staff, particularly those in very specific roles, but that’s getting more difficult as the war goes on, explains Pakholchuk. “Many people are going into the army,” he says. “And that’s a big, big problem for us now.”
Yet Ukrainians are still watching television. And, unlike when the war broke out, advertisers are spending again, according to Pakholchuk.
“The market is very active. Many new and old advertisers are coming back, especially from the end of last year. Many international companies have started their advertising activities. They see that consumption [in Ukraine] is growing,” says Pakholchuk, who explains this is because many families in Ukraine have ended up with more disposable income than they had before the war. This is because soldiers’ salaries are in some cases higher than their earnings were when they were civilians.
“[Despite] this awful situation, many families are receiving bigger incomes and their spending is growing,” he points out.
This means production volume is on the increase at 1+1 Media and the focus is shifting back towards TV series. In 2022, the company produced a total of 2,672 hours of programming, only slightly down on the year before, but the lion’s share (2,599 hours) comprised information-based, historical and documentary programming with just a tiny amount (52 hours) dedicated to scripted TV series, compared to 368 hours of scripted TV series in 2021.
Filming of The Voice of the Country switched to Warsaw in a coproduction with TVP
But by 2023, the number of scripted TV series was up to 381 hours, alongside 3,000 hours of factual (with 839 hours coming from donations). This year, the company expects to hit 590 hours of scripted TV series compared to 2,864 hours of factual programming, of which 870 hours will be funded through donations.
Regarding TV series, “it’s much less than it was before the war, but it’s the beginning,” says the exec, who oversees nine channels in total. They include national TV channel 1+1 Ukraine; 1+1 Marathon, a news initiative launched under the brand Unified News in February 2022 to provide the Ukrainian people with news around the clock; the male-skewed 2+2 TV channel; family entertainment channel TET TV; leading kids’ TV channel PlusPlus; 1+1 International, for Ukrainians living abroad; sports and entertainment channel Unian TV; female-skewed entertainment channel Bihudi; and Comedy Central Ukraine, a youth-orientated entertainment channel offering international programming and modelled on the original Comedy Central channel.
Producing content in time of war is far from straightforward, though, says Pakholchuk, especially when you step out of the news and information sphere, because the mood of the nation is shifting all the time. “It’s seldom the case that your content is not under attack,” he explains. “All the emotions are now very, very complicated. And it’s not easy. And then there’s the issue of how long will this content, which is produced now, work in the future? I don’t know, and no one has the answer.”
Programming that is working currently for the broadcaster, however, is content that focuses on the culture and history of the country of Ukraine. A good example of this is I Love Ukraine, a Ukrainian adaption of the ITV format show, I Love My Country. Now in its third season with a new season set to launch on March 10, the quizshow tests Ukrainian celebrities on how well they know Ukraine, including its language, culture and history.
“It’s a very positive show. And it’s one of the leading shows on TV. It’s a brilliant case, where there is no hate,” says Pakholchuk, who then asks: “But how many such programmes can you produce?”
This seems a reasonable question from a CEO of a media company that had to scrap 80% of the programmes that it had in production for the fall of 2022 and the spring of 2023 because of the war and, meanwhile, has a library of content half of which is no longer transmittable.
“Now it’s very dangerous to put it on-air because you do not know how people will react. Some shows were produced in the Russian language or were mixed language, with Ukrainian and Russian. Now it’s not okay. It’s not allowed. But you need somehow to replace it. That’s the big challenge,” explains Pakholchuk.
That gap in content has been filled in part by productions funded through international donations. In fact, donations made up the majority of projects produced by 1+1 Media in 2022, according to Pakholchuk, and continued to form “a big part of our activities in 2023, which was even bigger than the year before. And we have a big volume even now in 2024.”
I Love Ukraine is a ‘very positive show’ says Pakholchuk
Most of the programmes funded via donations are documentaries “about the war, values, about history and about perspective,” explains Pakholchuk, who notes the appreciation felt towards the “international support of partners and when new partners are joining us.”
Last year was when “we understood that we needed to relaunch the industry,” Pakholchuk continues. It was also the year when 1+1 Media had “some big meetings with the president and with the regulators and they gave us financial support from the budget”.
This state-funded support is for “socially necessary fiction and documentary content,” according to the company’s communications department. One show that has been supported by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine is Akim Galimov’s Ukraine: The Return of the Nation’s History. The project, which aired on 1+1 Ukraine channel, “aims to debunk myths and give Ukrainian’s back their stolen history,” according to the company, and has garnered almost eight million views (Ukrainian version) so far on Youtube.
When it comes to financing content though, 1+1 Media focuses primarily on raising commercial funds from advertising and sponsorship, grants from international foundations and via coproductions with Ukrainian and international partners.
One such coproduction took place last year when, for the 13th season of the popular show The Voice of the Country (based on the ITV Studios format The Voice), filming switched to Warsaw in a coproduction with Polish state broadcaster TVP.
“It was an interesting case, where [our staff] visited Poland and we produced this joint project. It was a good experience and it was one of the leading shows in season four of 2023,” comments Pakholchuk.
Looking forward, he says the company’s development slate includes an original gameshow planned for autumn of 2024, details of which are under wraps for the moment.
Alongside its Ukrainian production interests, 1+1 Media has been trying to establish international production companies in the CEE region since the outbreak of the war. Though two of these have floundered already, one is still operating in Slovakia, according to Pakholchuk. The company, called United Content Hub, is headed up by TV and film producer Adriy Nogin and is focused on coproducing projects and distributing Ukrainian films and TV series in the EU market. The company’s portfolio includes “films and TV series at various stages of production including for the markets of France, Latvia, Croatia, Austria and Germany,” according to 1+1 Media.
Elsewhere, 1+1 Media has plans “to launch new channels in two to three [European] countries” and to this end is in negotiations with regulators and partners in 10 markets, according to Pakholchuk. “I will tell you when we have some success, but we are close to launching new channels over the summer and another project this fall. So let’s see.”
