Party of Lyashko, Groysman and Poroshenko spend the most on campaigning on TV – Chesno.org

The radical party Oleg Lyashko, " Ukrainian Strategy of Groysman" and "European Solidarity" spent the most on TV advertising. This is the conclusion of the research made by the NGO Chesno.org, which analyzed the volumes and value of political advertising from April to July. Thus, according to monitoring, from April 21 to July 7, 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. The front-runner is the Radical Party. As of July 7, the placement of campaigning on national TV channels should cost about 45.5 million hryvnias (approximatively $1 753 thousand) to this political force. To this sum, the experts of Chesno took into account the cost of the greetings of leader of the party Oleg Lyashko. " Ukrainian Strategy of Groysman" spent 44.7 million UAH ($1 695 thousand) on party polictical broadcast. "It is worth to note that Volodymyr Groysman's presence in TV advertising was not limited to the campaign of "Ukrainian Strategy". In April, on the order of the Cabinet of Ministers, advertisement reels that promoted the brand "# governmentGroysman" were aired 47 times on the television channels.  The broadcasting of this advertisement only in April must have costed about 650 thousand hryvnias ($ 25 thousand) to the public budget. Chesno observed that the Government's social advertising under the brand "# governmentGroysman" was aired in June as well, "- the survey reads. Top of first 3 parties in terms of spending on TV commercials also included "European Solidarity." The cost of broadcasting party rolls is 42.9 million UAH ($1 653 thousand). More than 40 million hryvnia ($ 1 541 thousand) for campaign on TV was spent  by the Opposition Bloc. The "fifth" in terms of spending on campaigning on TV is the party “Holos” with its 37.7 million hryvnia spent for this purpose ($ 1 452 thousand). According to the analysis, among 18 television channels in the monitoring sample, 4 broadcasters had more than 50% of the videos with political advertising covering one of the parties. "Channel 5" and "Espresso" broadcasted exclusively the advertisement of "European Solidarity". And on "Pryamyy", this party's share in political advertising was 91%. TV channel "TET" as well advertised only one party: "Servants of the People". The “Opposition bloc” party was promoted in preference by “Ukraina” TV channel (belonging to Media Group Ukraine, owned by Rinat Akhmetov). The most of the "Opposition Platform - For Life" advertising was aired by the Inter channel, which is part of the media conglomerate "Inter Media Group" owned by the Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash. The "Opposition platform" is also actively promoted to the channel "112" and "NewsOne". "The results of the polls indicate that television remains the main source of political information for citizens. An active presence on TV could guarantee to the parties and to the politicians a higher degree of recognition among the electorate, and thus, this increases the chances of victory at election. This creates incentives for political players to hold expensive campaigns on television. At the same time, to start campaigning as soon as possible, "- the research reads. The analysis used data from the monitoring of political advertising on television, covering the period from April 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019. The monitoring sample includes 18 national TV channels: 1 + 1, 2 + 2, 24 channel, Channel 5, Channel 112, Ukraina, ZIK, Espresso TV, ICTV INTER, K1, Novy Kanal, NEWS ONE, NTN, Direct, STB, TET, UA: Pershyy.