A year ago, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy launched The Gaze, which was supposed to become a competitor to the BBC and Deutsche Welle, but it didn’t work out
In June last year, the state-owned Multimedia Platform for Foreign Broadcasting of Ukraine (MPIU), which reports to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, launched the English-language media platform The Gaze.
The idea was to unobtrusively and interestingly tell foreigners about Ukraine in the context of European integration. However, the implementation of this idea raised doubts from the very beginning. Four months after the launch of the new state media platform, investigators from the NGL.media publication discovered that tens of millions from the Ministry of Culture budget are being spent on content that almost no one consumes.
After the publication of that publication, freelance adviser to the MPIU Artem Bidenko, who helped launch The Gaze, said that they had drawn conclusions too early about the ineffectiveness of spending public money - they say, “give us time and we will show you.”
Well, a year has passed since the launch of the project, and The Gaze’s performance continues to be, to put it mildly, deplorable. Meanwhile, MPIU continues to spend millions of hryvnia on creating content, changing contractors - and they don’t seem to fully understand what they are doing.
How much does it cost?
To obtain information about all expenses for The Gaze for the year (creative part, promotion, technical support of the site, etc.), NGL.media turned to the State Enterprise “Multimedia Platform for Foreign Broadcasting of Ukraine” with a request to provide a detailed budget for the project. However, Artem Vishnevsky, deputy director for production of the MPIU, refused to provide this information - according to him, it is impossible to calculate expenses directly for The Gaze.
“The company does not create or commission the creation of content exclusively for The Gaze digital platform. The created content was broadcast, is being broadcast or plans to be broadcast in the future by using its other resources - websites, pages on social networks, YouTube channels of the Enterprise, etc.,” is stated in Vishnevsky’s response to a request from NGL.media.
It is noteworthy that in August last year, the IPF provided comprehensive information about the costs of the The Gaze project and no problems arose with this.
To independently calculate the costs of this project, NGL.media analyzed all contracts with contractors as of May 2024 inclusive. According to our calculations, over 12 months of activity, The Gaze’s content alone (texts and video programs) cost UAH 76.3 million, of which UAH 60 million has already been paid to contractors. Another 14.5 million UAH, of which 12.1 million UAH have already been paid.
In just one year of operation, The Gaze concluded deals worth UAH 90.8 million, of which UAH 72.1 million has already been paid to contractors.
What do we have as a result?
Now the audience of The Gaze website is about 16.6 thousand unique visitors per month - this is quite a bit, especially considering the financial resources spent. For comparison, the average monthly audience of the English-language Ukrinform, which is also financed from the budget, is more than 880 thousand unique visitors. By the way, a considerable amount of news on The Gaze is reprinted from Ukrinform.
The content of The Gaze website has not changed much - it continues to publish news, the sources of which are the social networks of public Ukrainian and foreign figures, reprints from foreign media and Ukrinform. In addition to political and economic news, readers are also offered lifestyle, sports, tourism and the like.
At the same time, The Gaze editors are no different in their efficiency - for example, the results of the football match between Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which took place on the evening of March 21, were reported at lunchtime on March 22. And The Gaze readers had a chance to learn about the phenomenal victory of boxer Oleksandr Usik over Tyson Fury only in the evening of May 19, although the fight ended around two in the morning.
The site also creates review and analytical articles on economic and political topics. From time to time, the platform publishes materials from the Institute for the Study of War (ISV), columns by politicians, and the like.
Media project without editing
In October last year, the then freelance adviser to the MPIU, Artem Bidenko, claimed that the editor-in-chief of The Gaze is Denis Bezlyudko, but now the MPIU assures that he is no longer cooperating with The Gaze.
The media project, in which more than UAH 90 million has already been invested, not only does not have a chief editor, but also does not have a full-fledged editorial office. The content is created by various private contractors, individual stories or projects are created by the MPIU employees themselves, and technical support is provided by a third-party company.
“We do not have a separate editorial office for The Gaze. We have an editorial board that makes key programming and editorial decisions. There are departments common to all divisions of the State Enterprise “MPIU” that carry out service functions, finance, legal support, security, technical maintenance, IT support, personnel, etc. […] part of the production tasks for The Gaze are performed by our full-time employees [MPIU] , for example, these are news stories, or our new project Expats in Ukraine,” says MPIU General Director Yulia Ostrovskaya in a written response to NGL.media. — The other part of the tasks is solved by external contractors who won art competitions or open tenders, and with whom SE “MPIU” entered into relevant agreements, available on Prozorro. How many people are involved in these projects is the responsibility of the contractors.”
Artem Bidenko, who was previously involved in the launch of Тһе Gaze and advised MPIU, is now dissociating himself from the project.
“I decided that if you make the changes to your articles that I indicated in Media Detector, then I will return to this project. And since no changes were made, I am no longer involved in this project,” Bidenko told NGL.media in a telephone conversation.
Taciturn billiard player
Since November 2023, a new contractor has appeared who creates news and articles for The Gaze. This is a member of the Federation of Sports Billiards of Ukraine and the owner of a narrow-profile site “Billiard Information Site Duplet”, 58-year-old Sergei Gilevich. It was with him that the MPIU entered into two agreements for a total of UAH 9.9 million, of which it has already paid UAH 2.2 million to Gilevich.
The MPIU agreement with Gilevich, which is valid until the end of the year, states that the cost of each publication includes its “promotion to an English-speaking audience.” Taking into account this requirement, the cost of one publication may vary depending on the volume - 9780 UAH (3-4 thousand characters), 16400 UAH (4.5-7 thousand characters), 41400 UAH (8-16 thousand characters). At the same time, the contract does not specify methods of “promotion to an English-speaking audience.”
Sergei Gilevich initially refused to communicate with NGL.media and asked to send him a written request. After receiving questions regarding the number of employees, their work experience, the algorithm for creating, publishing and promoting materials, he categorically refused to answer.
“I consulted with them [probably MPIU], these are my partners, we cooperate. If you want to write an article where you will, so to speak, clarify your relationship with them through me, this does not suit me. If you have problems with them, contact them,” Gilevich said over the phone, “I cooperate with them and have a great desire for this work to end well and well [...] Write to the mail - I will forward it to their legal department, as they will write a response to your request, I will forward it. If there is no answer, then there won’t be one.”
Now Gilevich remains the only producer of text content for The Gaze, the agreements with his predecessors mentioned in the previous material ended and were not renewed.
Video content has changed
Over the past six months, the visual part of The Gaze's content has undergone significant changes. Some of the shows with which the project started are no longer produced - for example, the puppet show “Hidden Angle”, the culinary show “Chefs Next Door”, the historical program “History&Culture” and others.
During this time, The Gaze YouTube channel grew to 23.6 thousand subscribers and a little more than 4 million views. However, most programs continue to collect several dozen or hundreds of views, while programs that have already been discontinued in production still remain among the most popular on the channel.
The Gaze’s new programs, which are released on YouTube (“War is Algebra”, “Stop Fake”, “Expats in Ukraine”), are also not very popular.
However, MPIU does not give up and continues to enter into contracts for the production of video content. In a response to NGL.media, MPIU representatives claim that several more new shows will be released on The Gaze platform by the end of this year:
- AI Prompt:Ukraine (30 episodes, 33,500 UAH each + 60 video shorts, 750 UAH), produced by sole proprietor Dmitry Petrovich Kisilevich. “The main character of this show is artificial intelligence. It is his view that becomes the main topic for conversations about the history and modernity of Ukraine,” as stated in the program description in the contract with the contractor.
Economics of War (20 episodes, 28,500 UAH each + 40 video shorts, 750 UAH), produced by private entrepreneur Dmitry Petrovich Kisilevich.
- An unknown story (30 episodes for 28,500 UAH + 60 video shorts for 750 UAH), produced by FOP Kisilevich Dmitry Pavlovich.
- Social Comparisons: Ukraine vs. Europe, (50 episodes for 15,000 UAH each, adaptation into Arabic and Spanish for 1,000 UAH per episode + 100 video shorts for 500 UAH), produced by individual entrepreneur Krul Maxim Yurievich.
- Foreigners help Ukraine, (20 episodes for 50,000 UAH each, adaptation into Arabic and Spanish for 1,750 UAH per episode + 40 video shorts for 750 UAH), produced by individual entrepreneur Maxim Vladimirovich Yatsenko.
- How to make beauty out of military things (20 episodes for 40,000 UAH each, adaptation into Arabic and Spanish for 1,750 UAH per episode + 40 video shorts for 750 UAH), produced by sole proprietor Maxim Vladimirovich Yatsenko.
The production of these new programs alone will cost the state enterprise UAH 5.5 million.
MPIU has worked with Dmitry Kisilevich and Maxim Krul before; NGL.media has already mentioned them. But the new contractor, 41-year-old Maxim Yatsenko, has experienced himself in very different roles in life. For example, in 2019, he actively disseminated the results of the “Affordable Medicine” campaign on Facebook.
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Yatsenko sold disinfection equipment to hospitals. The following year, Ukrainian Center for Strategic Solutions LLC, where he was a co-owner, entered into agreements with public hospitals for the supply of medical masks and protective suits. In parallel, Maxim Yatsenko conducted sociological research for the State Enterprise “Center for the Protection of the Information Space of Ukraine,” which reports to the Ministry of Culture.
As of 2022, the main activity of entrepreneur Maxim Yatsenko was “providing taxi services.” And already in 2024, he began collaborating with MPIU, receiving contracts to film two programs for The Gaze. To do this, he changed the main activity of individual entrepreneurs from taxi services to “consulting on commercial activities and management.”
In a telephone conversation with NGL.media, Yatsenko promised to provide a comment in a few days about cooperation with The Gaze and his experience in video production, but then he stopped communicating.
In general, Yatsenko’s programs will cost the MPIU budget UAH 2 million, of which the entrepreneur has not yet been paid anything.
“Of course, I want more”
The MPIU notes that all programs created for The Gaze are also broadcast on the YouTube channel of UATV, another, much more popular project of state foreign broadcasting. On this channel, The Gaze's programs have the best performance and sometimes receive several thousand views.
In general, the results of The Gaze project over the year of activity at the IPIU are considered successful, in particular due to a decrease in the number of views from Ukraine and, accordingly, an increase in the share of foreign viewers from abroad.
“Speaking about assessments and results, I note that it is important in what coordinate system we evaluate this or that project, with what we compare it,” Yulia Ostrovskaya, general director of the State Enterprise “MPIU,” explains in a response to NGL.media, “I will not touch on digital platforms now.” internal Ukrainian media, and I will turn to the previous experience of foreign broadcasting, in particular to the YouTube channel UATV English 2017-2019
They like to reproach our team for allegedly “killing foreign broadcasting.” So, in the first three years of its existence, this channel had 15.7 thousand subscribers and 4.6 million views, and the share of views from Ukraine was 7.4%. And this experience was assessed by the media community as successful. In less than a year, The Gaze repeated in some ways and surpassed in some ways this result.”
According to her, MPIU continues to look for formats and ways to attract new audiences. To this end, they plan to soon announce a tender for “comprehensive promotion” of their digital platforms in English, Russian and Spanish.
“Of course, we want more, but we don’t forget that The Gaze operates in a market that is very saturated with supply, so we are constantly looking for hooks with which we can hook the right audience, launching new projects, giving up something, experimenting,” she is full of hope for the future Yulia Ostrovskaya.
