Ukraine (TV channel)


Ukraina, officially TRC Ukraina, was a national Ukrainian-language television channel owned by Media Group Ukraine. It began broadcasting as a regional Donetsk channel on March 13, 1993, gaining national status in 2004. It ceased broadcasting in July 2022. The channel aired TV shows and films, both domestic and foreign.

History

The channel was established in Donetsk in March 1993 as the state utility company Doka-TV. The operator was under Donetsk City Council. The channel started broadcasting in Donetsk on Channel 7, where it shared time with other TV companies, ASKET 7x7 and Sket. 
By the end of the 1990s, ASKET TV was bought out by a corporation owned by tycoon Rinat Akhmetov. The new owners of ASKET TV offered to unite with Doka-TV on mutually beneficial terms. In March 2001, the joint-stock company TRK Ukraina was established; it received a license for a channel in Donetsk, and later for a number of channels in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. At that time, Akhmetov's SCM group owned 75% of the channel's shares. In 2007, SCM became the owner of 99%, and in 2010 it owned 100% of the channel's shares.
In 2002–2003, the company continued its active development, receiving more than a hundred television frequencies throughout Ukraine, including VHF channel 11 in Kyiv, where the channel began broadcasting in June 2003. In the same year, the channel also started broadcasting via satellite. In April 2003, TRK Ukraina became one of the most accessible packages of the Kyiv cable operator Volia. In 2004 during the Orange Revolution, TRK Ukraina was associated as the media resource of Viktor Yanukovych's pro-Russian camp and seen as sharing the ideology of the Party of Regions  and promoting Rinat Akhmetov for president. Moreover, in the same year, the channel received national status.
In 2008, Media Group Ukraine was founded, launching the sports channel Football TV. In the autumn of 2009, TRK Ukraina moved their broadcasting facilities to Kyiv. In 2010, the channel was rebranded to "Ukraine", dropping "TRK".
In 2013, the channel officially signed the agreement to broadcast the UEFA Euro 2016 and FIFA World Cup 2018. In 2020, the channel officially broadcast in high definition.
Rinat Akhmetov, the beneficial owner of Media Group Ukraine, returned the licenses of all media assets of the media group to the state in July 2022. The station stopped broadcasting on 22 July 2022 at 10:00a.m. Kyiv Time. According to an official statement, the group returned the licenses due to a new oligarch law in Ukraine. On 21 July 2022, the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine had canceled the licenses of the eight television channels of Media Group Ukraine. On 18 October 2022, its previous team launched the channel My-Ukraina.

Language share

In 2003, in a document of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine, it was stated that NRADA should force the channel to broadcast in Ukrainian, and that the reason for the lack of Ukrainian-language broadcasting was the lack of control over their compliance by NRADA. In 2014, after the Euromaidan protests and the reduction of Russian culture, the channel equally shifted the use of the Ukrainian language to promote national identity.

Programming

News/talk

  • Today – news program
  • Today: Results – daily talk
  • Morning with Ukraine – morning show
  • Ukraine Speaks – talk show

    Infotainment

  • Star Trek – business
  • The Main Theme – scope program

    Entertainment

  • The Masked Singer Ukraine – detective game show
  • Snivayutb Vsi – musical game show
  • Agents of Justice – crime drama
  • Real Mysticism – drama