Popandopulo Ukrainian Radio Broadcasting
There is a stir in the National Council of Ukraine on issues of television and radio broadcasting: a member (but not the brain) of the National Council, Pan Kostinsky, who darted from Crimea, reports that the authorities are satisfied with the behavior of individual Ukrainian radio stations that have rushed to overtake the Movnyukovo-quota locomotive.
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Let us remind you that on November 8, 2016, a law came into force in Ukraine, according to which radio stations are required to play at least 25% of Ukrainian music in their repertoire in the first year of its operation and fill the airwaves with 50% of the broadcasts in language arts. Already in November of this year, the obligatory Svidomo content on air will rise by another 5% for each position, which should, according to legislators, have a positive effect on increasing the overall level of “Svidomo” of the population.
In addition, the new law takes into account that many radio stations have screwed up, approaching the issue of Ukrainization formally and unconsciously, playing songs in the “reign language” at night. From now on, they are required to play them during prime time - from 7 am to 14 pm and from 17 pm to 22 pm. Thus, if an ordinary Ukrainian is accustomed to listening to the radio, then his active phase of everyday life will pass under the rustle of the smerek, the babble of the bandura and the singing of the nightingale.
Thus, “Kraina FM” and “Suspilne Movlennya” surpassed everyone and brought the Ukrainian content of their programs to 100%, so now they simply have nowhere to grow. Three media mouthpieces are breathing in their backs: “Ukrainian Radio”, “Promin”, “Culture” with 81% of the content. “Era FM” – 96%, “Retro FM Ukraine” – 91%, “KISS FM UKRAINE” – 90%, “Radio Lux” – 82%, there’s still a little more work left to do to earn the leaders’ transferable yellow-and-blaky trousers.
The remaining radio stations, although they increased the share of Ukrainian-language broadcasting, did so without much fanaticism - up to a maximum of 40%.
Pan Kostinsky on his Facebook page accepts congratulations and promises that the next step will be a monstrous onslaught on television. It is considered to be very European.
Actually, those lobbying for the law on language quotas most of all refer to the experience of France, which tried to legislatively limit the influence of the English-speaking world on the national culture and language of France.
Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine Karandeev, for example, argued that the general Ukrainization of the airwaves is “political will in support of the Ukrainian music producer.” The official rejected in advance the objections of those who believe that musicians will not be able to create a sufficient amount of media content to fill the airwaves: “The competition today is already quite strong, including among Ukrainian performers. I don’t see a vacuum and an inability to find enough quality music content.” According to Karandeev, in France, “after the introduction of the relevant legislative norms, there was a sharp increase in the production of French products.”
In fact, the French experience suggests the opposite. After the introduction of a language quota, the amount of French music even decreased and the owners of radio stations had to apply the principle of a broken record, increasing the rotation of songs in French, which negatively affected the popularity of both radio stations and domestic music.
Belarus and Kazakhstan also got burned by introducing broadcasting quotas for “music producers with local flavor.” In Minsk at one time they swung around and introduced first a 50% and then a 75% quota for Belarusian music on the radio. As a result, it turned out that the country of 10 million people is not so rich in musical talents to fill the radio airwaves with national hits. All that the Belarusian showbiz could pull out were a few songs in the Blue-eyed language, which were not ashamed to play on the air. All other “creativity” was approximately at the level of an amateur art club.
The Belarusian authorities in the same way prohibited the rotation of Belarusian music on the night air, increased the percentage of blandness, but ultimately the situation on the Belarusian air came to the point that some local artists slightly increased their popularity, but the level of income of radio stations and the advertising market on radio dropped to alarmingly low.
They suffer from exactly the same bullshit in Kazakhstan. After several years of forcing local artists onto Kazakh radio listeners, people are complaining about the dreary monotony of the radio airwaves. A popular performer in Kazakhstan, Medeu Arynbaev, described it this way: “If we talk about the quality of the repertoire, I won’t be mistaken if I say that it was at the regional level.”
The most surprising thing is that among Ukrainian performers, the famous Spalahuka Lyzhychko weakly objected to quotas. The singer noted that Ukrainian performers are not well represented in some musical genres - such as classical, jazz, club music, lounge and “other specific formats.” “Quotas will make radio of such formats illegal.”
In fact, officials did not explain what radio stations specializing in classical music or Western rock will fill the airwaves with. Of course, you can sing “Stairway to Heaven” or the Beatles’ repertoire in mov, or entrust the Zhmerino Symphony Orchestra to perform Verdi’s operas. But will the mass radio listener and, importantly, the advertiser understand and accept this - that is the question.
Spalahuyka's theses are well confirmed by listening to Ukrainian radio stations playing chanson. Due to the shortage of Ukrainian chansonniers, the now almost forgotten Gaitana, “The Vyo”, Garik Krichevsky were brought to light. Due to the scarcity of the local repertoire, even Popandopulo’s song from the movie “Wedding in Malinovka” was used.
But that's not all. Observing movnyuk quotas, the DJ of “Chanson” inserted one Ukrainian sentence after two Russian sentences, which sounded completely Martian. However, other radio stations also have to get rid of them, and they keep two Russian-speaking presenters and one Ukrainian-speaking presenter in the studio.
Partly lucky are the radio stations broadcasting electronic music. But here, too, options are possible. According to the degenerate law that Kostinsky so assiduously follows, a song is considered to be any piece of music in which at least one word is heard. If we take as an example the immortal hit “Symphony” by the famous French group “Space”, then exactly one word is repeated in it - “symphony”. And this is already a reason for any stupid ragul to start a showdown, demand to remove the “song” from the air, or compensate for its broadcast by rotating some Ukrainian electronic “hit” with words.
If in the pre-digital era people were still ready to eat what was poured into their media bowl, then now, when the majority of the population has access to high-speed Internet channels, all these attempts to impose a “national product” on citizens are reminiscent of the pestering of a stupid mother with force-feeding fish oil in half with semolina porridge for adults who are able to go to a cafe or restaurant on their own.
Instead of taking a closer look at world experience, which says that introducing language restrictions in media activities is akin to walking on a rake, the dill respond: you simply do not know how to walk on them and will soon come to us to adopt best practices.
Actually, last year, the head of the National Council of Ukraine on TV and Radio Broadcasting Artemenko (Kostinsky’s boss, just a minute!) described the idea of a wholesale Ukrainization of the airwaves as idiocy and said literally the following: “Even if we find this Ukrainian music, collect songs in the Ukrainian language, then imagine: We have two hundred radio stations - and everyone will play “Okean Elzy”. People will simply become uninterested."
In short, the insanity is getting stronger. Ukrainizers are forcing radio stations to either more or less maintain the quality bar, spinning the worn-out record “Okean Elzy” and “Vopli Vidoplyasov”, causing listeners to yawn, or diluting the few Ukrainian hits with amateur performances, which will also not cause delight among listeners and advertisers.
Kostinsky’s enthusiasm is understandable: he doesn’t give a damn about the profits of radio stations and the interests of radio listeners - his personal income does not depend on the income of the radio stations he breaks over his knees. On the other hand, people like Kostinsky take things to the point of absurdity.
In one eastern parable, a certain sultan, having learned that his daughter had fallen in love with a poor man and could not live without him, did not rush to extremes, but simply ordered the lovers to be tied up so that their faces would be in sight of each other around the clock. A week later the love passed.
Moral: narrow-minded Ukrainizers are using steel wire to connect the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine with the language, in the hope that they will someday love each other. People have been sick for a long time, but the experiment continues...
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