Party of the Regions gets vastly more broadcasting time than opposition

From State-owned UTV-1

Spilny Prostir [Common Ground] and the Equal Opportunities Committee have made public their interim monitoring report of regional and national media based on monitoring between 30 July and 19 August 2012.

During the first three weeks of the election campaign the ruling Party of the Regions was absolute leader in broadcasting coverage in all regions and the Crimea. This reached an all-out record in the Donetsk oblast where those in power received 3.5 hours of broadcasting time, while the opposition only got a little over two minutes. This comes to 99.3% against 0.7% for other political parties (including the Communist Party which is part of the ruling majority in parliament).  

Thus in the Donetsk oblast:

Party of the Regions                                  99.3% %

Communist Party                                        0.1%

United Opposition                                      0.5%

Udar                                                              0 %

Ukraina Vpered (Korolevska)                   0 %

VO Svoboda                                             0 %

Candidates putting themselves forward        0.1%

The situation is hardly better in the East of Ukraine in general.

Party of the Regions                                  89.1% %

Communist Party                                        0.9%

United Opposition                                      6.8%

Udar                                                          1, 4%

Ukraina Vpered (Korolevska)                   2.2%

VO Svoboda                                                0.1%

Candidates putting themselves forward            5.3%

In the South:

Party of the Regions                                  84, 2% %

Communist Party                                        2.3%

United Opposition                                      4.7%

Udar                                                              2.3%

Ukraina Vpered (Korolevska)                   0.3%

VO Svoboda                                                0%

Candidates putting themselves forward            6.2%

In the Centre of Ukraine the figures were:

Party of the Regions                                  78.7%

Communist Party                                        8.8%

United Opposition                                      2.9%

Udar                                                              2%

Ukraina Vpered (Korolevska)                   2.2%

VO Svoboda                                                0.1%

Candidates putting themselves forward            5.3%

In the North of the country, the Party of the Regions had 84, 3% of broadcasting time, the Communist Party only 0.9%,  

Party of the Regions                                  84, 3%

Communist Party                                        0.9%,  

United Opposition                                      1.3%

Udar                                                              1%

Ukraina Vpered (Korolevska)                   0.5%

VO Svoboda                                                0%

Candidates putting themselves forward            1.5%

Even the West of Ukraine gave very high coverage to the Party of the Regions, as well as considerable coverage to the rightwing VO Svoboda Party.

Party of the Regions                                  70, 3%

Communist Party                                        0.6%,  

United Opposition                                      10.9%

Udar                                                              7.1%

Ukraina Vpered (Korolevska)                   1.1%

VO Svoboda                                                5.6%

Candidates putting themselves               4.4%

On national channels the Party of the Regions received 19 times more coverage than the opposition.

On Inter (owned by Valery Khoroshkovsky, former Head of the Security Service; now Finance Minister) there were 32 times more negative references to the opposition than to the Party of the Regions.

There was 2 – 3 times more direct speech in general from the Party of the Regions – on the State-owned UTV- there was 10 times more.

While the Party of the Regions was criticized 2.5 times more often, the Equal Opportunities Committee points out that this criticism disappeared against the general chorus of praise. The channels virtually didn’t analyze the government’s mistakes and did not inform voters about their consequences. There was generally extremely little analytical material about the actions of the government, or those of the Party of the Regions