594 state and communal mass media destatizated

594 Ukraine state and communal printed press outlets have already been reformed, as the chairman of the State committee for television and radio broadcasting Oleh Nalyvayko said at the round table "Freedom of speech in Ukraine: challenges and eventual solutions" as Ukrinform reported. "As of June 1, 2019, 594 printed press editions have been reformed, including 557 municipal editions, representing about 92% of the total number of municipal editions, 37 state editions have been reformed, which are for about 46% of the total. And this taken into account the chage of title for some editions. These figures are to be in progress, "Nalyvayko said. As to Oleh Nalyvayko, there is no reason to say the reform was broke down. Since those mass media which failed to be privatized, they "also are on the go: some of them became digital ones, some others were transformed into an online publication," Nalyvayko said. "And then editions emerged with analogical titles, as within one year, as you know, one cannot take the same title as it has been. For example, in Rivne region, the newspaper “Gomin” failed to be reformed, and so the newspaper "Gomin & K" was registered, in the Kyiv region the newspaper "Vpered" was not reformed, and the newspaper "Vperet +" appeared, he said. Nalivayko foresees that it will be about 5% of non-reformed media outlets, and this, he said, is not bad, because initially, when discussion on this reform had just been started, they supposed it would be about half of mass media in which the reform is to fail. "If you consider it in general, so I guess it was well done. The outcome is OK,” the chairman of the State committee for television and radio broadcasting said. (For reference: as the Center for democracy and rule of law explained : Reform of printed mass media supposed the procedure of its destatization. On December 31st 2018 the term has expired for mass media destatization, transformation of national and municipal media into independent editions. Starting from January 1st 2019 state and local self-government authorities has no more rights to be a founders of printed word media and spent budget funds for promotion of their own activity in their pages. Realignment of media is one of the key media reforms in Ukraine, which is intended to provide independence of media from public authorities. )