A demand for Ukrainian TV production in foreign markets is growing. The best Ukrainian TV novels are bought not only by CIS countries, but also by Japan, Romania, Norway and other non-Russian speaking countries. The distribution’s geographic expansion could stimulate the producers and bring down the film prices for Ukrainian TV channels.      

The Ukrainian TV market is too small for telefilms and mini-series with an average budget of $300,000-600,000 to find quick sales. So, production companies are geared to Russia – they shoot their films in Russian language and drawing them to “the Russian standard”. As for today, total sales of Ukrainian telefilms in Russia exceed their Ukrainian revenues. For example, the films of Fresh Production UA get more than 75% of revenues from Russian buyers, 12.5% from Ukrainian ones, and about 2% from the rest of CIS countries and other states.    

Recently, the post-Soviet product has been of interest for countries which have large Russian-speaking expatriate communities – Israel, Canada, USA. The Europe has not used yet to Russian TV products, not to mention Ukrainian.

By Maksym Kutyk