"It came as a surprise to us to learn that the chairman of the National Council [on Television and Radio Broadcasting] links the situation with the extension of 1+1 TV Channel’s license with the nationalization of Privatbank. In our country, there is a mechanism for nationalization of banks but, thank God, there are no mechanisms to nationalize TV channels," he said, adding that the comment of Yuriy Artemenko proves that the state is interested in the assets of 1+1 TV Channel.
Tkachenko said that the channel was not an asset of PrivatBank. "The studio has no loans from and neither does it have debt obligations to the bank [PrivatBank]. In private conversations, I have repeatedly received information that on the part of the Presidential Administration, pressure has been imposed on the National Council. I attribute this to the fact that ahead of the elections, the Presidential Administration is not happy with having a media resource beyond its control," says the statement.
Oleksandr Tkachenko also noted that the Ukrainian legislation does not oblige the channel to wait for a month (until January 23 2017) to receive the document on prolongation of the license.
Read alsoNational Broadcasting Council sees no reason to strip 1+1 TV Channel of license"Nothing prevented the National Council from handing a license over to us today, but this is not happening. We hear discussions on the issues such as ‘be more loyal to the president’, or ‘wait, give us this document or that...’ We have filed a package of documents with all necessary information as long as six months ago. Now as we can see, there is an ongoing shift in concepts, and we have every reason to fear that the National Council may revoke the earlier adopted decision. The request of Ms. Fishchuk (which we technically never received) on the ultimate beneficiary is nothing but a trick that cannot affect the fact of a license being granted to us," said 1+1 Media CEO.
As UNIAN reported earlier, overnight Thursday, December 29, the management and employees of 1+1 TV Channel published an appeal to the Ukrainian president and, prime minister of Ukraine, as well as the chairman of Parliament. The open letter wrote about the attempt to deprive the TV channel of its license.
