International Child Protection Day was marked on June 1. In connection with this important date, Ukraine’s 1st National TV Channel broadcast a 12-hour telethon called Kraina ditei (Country of Children), in which President Viktor Yushchenko and leading public and political figures took part. The 1st National Channel is one of a handful of media that have responded adequately to the question of child protection in Ukraine.
Unfortunately, viewers did not seem in any hurry to support the journalists’ efforts to attract public attention to this pressing issue. As reported on June 3, only .44 percent of viewers watched the telethon. It is our opinion that all concerned citizens should have watched this program.
The Day asked Vasyl Ilashchuk, the president of the National Television Company of Ukraine, whether he was satisfied with the results of the Country of Children telethon.
Ilashchuk: When we were preparing for the telethon, we didn’t expect to draw big viewer ratings. Instead, our job was to discuss problems that are preventing our children from enjoying the best moments of their childhood. If you watched the telethon, you would have heard that we talked about this issue non-stop with our guests, trying to find solutions to acute situations. We gave the mike to people whose personal and professional reputation is unquestionable. It is not ratings that determine the practical value of this telethon but the 4,000 calls that were made to our studio’s telephone operators. Our guests responded to some of the callers live on air. The rest of the questions were re-addressed to pertinent state bodies, ministries, and civic organizations, and I assure you that the solutions to these problems will be found before long. We do not always agree with the existing audience measurement system. It is true that a considerable proportion of our viewers live in small towns and raion centers, where no ratings are recorded.
I also think that on the day of the telethon many of our viewers were spending their leisure time outside with their families rather than sitting in front of the television. And this is the way it should be: family members spending time with each other, parents communicating with their children. So, we will survive the drop in our ratings because of these reasons.
One of the guest stars of our telethon was Oksana Bilozir, who said that we are paying a lot of attention to orphans, children from large families, and social orphans. But children from stable families can also suffer from a number of problems that may be affecting even your own children or your friends’ or relatives’ kids, Bilozir said. Therefore, we have to preserve the stability and health of Ukrainian families, because there is no way to build a healthy society without healthy families.
