UCC Meets OMNI/Rogers TV to Address Programming Cuts

August 15, 2012 - Toronto - The Presidents of UCC National Paul Grod, UCC Ontario Stefan Andrusiak, and UCC Toronto Oksana Rewa recently met with the senior management of OMNI Television to discuss the changes to Ukrainian television programming on its channel, in light of the non-renewal of the Ukrainian community public affairs programs Svitholiad and Objektiv.

“We expressed that the Ukrainian community is very disappointed in the sudden cancellation without consultation of the important Ukrainian language programs Svitohliad and Objektiv,” stated Ukrainian Canadian Congress National President Paul Grod.  “Svitohliad has been a fixture in the Ukrainian community for 30 years.”

During the July 25th meeting with Rogers Television Executive Vice President Malcolm Dunlop and OMNI TV’s National Vice President Madeline Ziniak, OMNI Television expressed its commitment to continue to showcase the diverse voices of Ukrainian audiences, and reaffirmed its decision to continue to broadcast Kontakt, in addition to exploring new production opportunities.

“OMNI Television has a deep-rooted history with Canada’s Ukrainian audiences and is committed to working closely with the community to accept independent production proposals for a new Ukrainian-language show,” said Madeline Ziniak. “We’re also prepared to assist the community with archiving television footage for future Ukrainian productions or research.”

Currently, Ukrainian programming is available in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia with access across Canada via Bell Satellite TV.

UCC held a community “Town Hall Meeting” session on August 16 at Toronto’s Ukrainian National Federation Community Centre with links to major centres across Canada where interested parties expressed their ideas and assist in developing new programming concepts.  We encourage our community to participate in an online survey where they can express their opinions on content and format for Ukrainian television, radio, print and internet media. UCC is working with interested parties to support a new independent programming proposal to OMNI.

The survey will be posted soon on the UCC website at www.ucc.ca and will assist in developing programming for a possible new Ukrainian television production ready to be broadcast this fall.