What’s up With Ukraine’s Media Regulation in October 2024?

In October, some long-awaited events influencing the Ukrainian media sector occurred. The MPs registered the draft amendments to the Law on Media, which aim to fix certain bugs in its implementation practice. Ukrainian Parliament also proceeded with the selection of the expired member in the media regulator, which is necessary to enhance NBC’s independence in light of the EU Enlargement Report’s recommendations and the lack of the regulator’s funding for the next year in the draft budget. Co-regulation also kept evolving, with the first body announcing certain important calls for management and expert positions.

The most notable events happening in this period were:

  • the resumption of the media regulator’s expired member appointment process;
  • the registration of Draft Law #12111 developed to improve the regulatory environment in the sphere of media and further align it with the constitutional and EU norms;
  • the adoption of Draft Law #11153 in the second reading, requiring the media to purchase insurance for their staff members working on the frontline;
  • the call of the co-regulatory body in the sphere of audiovisual media for further media participants, selection for the director’s post and experts to draft the codes of conduct.

This series of digests provides an overview of the proposed and adopted legislation in the spheres of freedom of expression, media regulation, privacy and data protection, Internet regulation in general, and the activities of the National Broadcasting Council in the area of Media Law implementation.

As usual, the digest contains references to the documents discussed in the previous issues of the digest and provides a follow-up to the acts and events described therein.

You can access the October 2024 digest here.