Most of the party funds spent for TV advertising - "CHESNO"

Altogether, during parliamentary election campaign political parties spent 427,7 million of hrivnyas (around $ 16 million) for television advertising, as IhorFeshchenko, parties funds analyst at the civil movement CHESNO, told at the press conference in Ukriform. “In equal measure, the part of expenses for television advertisement of four parties exceeded 90% of its funds (“Batkivshchyna”, “Radical party”, “Agrarian party” and “Syla prava” ( Force of law). High level of expenditures could be explained by shortness of  campaign and the fact the television allow to cover the majority of voters”, he said. He added, that according to the parties' financial reports, by July 10, the political parties had spent 559.9 million of hryvnias, of which 76.4% went for television advertising, 13.8% for outdoor advertising, 3.3% for printed products, 2.7% for radio advertisements, 1% for advertisements in printed media and 2.8% for other purposes. At the second position, in terms of expenses, was the outside advertisement, for which the parties spent 77,2 million of hryvnias (around 2,974 thousand). "For an outdoor advertising those parties spent more, which had smaller election funds. Apparently, this means that those political forces that cannot afford an expensive advertising on TV - up to 300 thousand hryvnia for 1 minute in prime time – found an outdoor advertising as a cheaper alternative," Feshchenko said. He noted that the third position as to volume of expenses was to campaign in printed press. Officially, the parties spent 18 million hryvnias for it (around $693 thousand) or 3.3% of the total cost. Another 15 million of hryvnias (around $577 thousand) was spent for radio advertising (2.7%). Feshchenko also added that this election was considerably focused on spending on the Internet, especially on Facebook and Instagram. As Feshshenko named several parties that spent most of all for advertisement before being registered by CEC: "European Solidarity" (23.2 million of hrysvnias), "Ukrainian Strategy of Groysman" (19.4 million of hryvnias), "Opposition Block" (17 million of hryvnias) and "Opposition Platform - For Life" ( 16.4 million of hryvnias). Also the party “Holos” had advertisement on TV before being registered. During this campaign, campaigning traditional element was campaign rallies combined with concerts. In all reports we could identify just a few tens of payments for rent of equipment, facilities and concerts organization. The total cost of it is 3.4 million hryvnias. We should remind this is the expenses of 20 parties, " Feshchenko told. IMI informed, according to the monitoring held by CHESNO, the parliamentary campaign contenders spent a total amount of about UAH 307 million (around $11 800 thousand) on TV advertising on 18 nationwide TV channels during the period from April 21 to July 7. The radical party Oleg Lyashko, ” Ukrainian Strategy of Groysman” and “European Solidarity” spent the most on TV advertising.