ITK is the television industry committee that unites tv-channels and media agencies in Ukraine for 20 years now. It organizes TAM panel research with Nielsen as research partner for the whole of Ukraine, except for the Crimea and Donbas regions (...).
Since the start of the Russian invasion, ITK and Nielsen did their outmost to continue the tv measurement in Ukraine. Whereas their fieldwork stopped, ITK continued to publish data, maintaining as much as possible distance working and Zoom meetings, at least till February 28th.
The public results of ITK show a rich but fragmented Ukrainian tv scene with the Top 20 channels having a cumulated market share of 63% last January (Source: ITK, January 2022, 4+ Total Ukraine; cumul. shr% added by author).
As may be expected, the imminent war, impacted evening news audiences. On an average Thursday, e.g. January 25th (see below, table 2), the top 20 news broadcasts came from 12 different stations and obtained a gross reach of 87% (Age 4+; Total Ukraine, gross cumul. Shr% added by author). Since some people will watch several news programs, the net % of people viewing at least one of these news programs will be lower.
On Wednesday, February 23th, the eve of the invasion, the top 20 news broadcasts obtained a gross reach of 115%, indicating that the Ukrainian population followed events closely before their television screen, hour by hour, throughout different news programs.
The war started on Thursday, February 24th. Television news was viewed as massively as the day before (see below, table 3; gross cumulated reach 111%), albeit from only 6 channels. As far as we know, the media pulled together in sharing information and live streams.
The data on February 24th were published today, on the 1st of March. We sincerely hope that ITK and Nielsen can continue to publish TV data for Ukraine, as a message that they are safe. And as a testimony of a useless war.
01.03.2022
Stef Peeters
