Due to underfinancing of National Public Television and Radio Company , branches cut broadcasting by almost half

The problem of underfinancing created obstacles not only for development of the public broadcaster, but also for its daily functioning. In all branches except “UA:Donbas”, the broadcasting hours were cut by almost one half. This was reported to the website “Suspilne movlennia” by the “National Public TV and Radio Company of Ukraine”. The company claims that underfinancing does not allow fulfilling its license conditions conditions in full. The funds are lacking not only for the broadcast per se, but also, for production of content. At the same time, the National Company is certain that in case of amendment of the state budget for 2018 in the part of allocation to the Public TV the funds guaranteed by the law, the license conditions will be fulfilled at once. In current state budget, based on the law approved by the Parliament on December 7, 2017, the company lacks one half of needed finances they expected to receive based on the legislation in effect. On December 4, 2017, the Cabinet of Ministers introduced updated budget law that allocates to the Public Television company 990 million hryvnias, which is by 213.5 million hryvnias more than the previous version. However, it is still under the amount guaranteed by the law, which was supposed to be 1.5 billion hryvnias for 2018.