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In January, there was an increase in the share of YouTube views for the FREEDOM channel on the territory of the Russian Federation, resulting in a total view count for content under the brand FREEDOM exceeding 10 billion on all digital platforms of the State Enterprise “The International Broadcasting Multimedia Platform of Ukraine” and partners. The presence and networks of national operators in Poland and Moldova have been enhanced through the expansion of the channel for Russian-speaking viewers abroad.
In January, on YouTube platforms SE “The International Broadcasting Multimedia Platform of Ukraine” the share of views FREEDOM from the territory of the Russian Federation increased to 62.4%. Since March 2022 when the channel started broadcasting, this has been the highest number. The weighted average for YouTube channels SE “The International Broadcasting Multimedia Platform of Ukraine” and partners increased to 79.6% globally in January, and 46.2% of the total views from abroad were from Russia.
The total amount of viewings of content under the FREEDOM brand on all digital platforms of the State Enterprise “The International Broadcasting Multimedia Platform of Ukraine” and partners was 204 million in January, and it has exceeded 10 billion since the broadcast started in March 2022.
The highest interest of the audience abroad was in military topics, in particular, strengthening Ukraine’s defense capabilities and expanding Russia’s weapons arsenal. A story with an expert’s commentary on the technical features of the new missiles used by Russia to attack Ukraine, which confirms that they were supplied by the DPRK, received 3.2 million views (Russia – 66.8%, Kazakhstan – 4.6%, views from abroad – 90.2%). Traditionally, the addresses of the President of Ukraine received high attention. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement about the successful downing of Russian missiles by Western air defense systems received 80.9% of views from Russia, 2.5% from Kazakhstan, and 97.6% of views from abroad in total. The audience’s attention is also focused on content that debunks myths and narratives of Russian propaganda. The “Special Report” issue, authored by Ksenia Barvinenko, which reveals the manipulations and political technologies that formed the false image of Putin, was viewed by more than 200 thousand people, with 95% coming from abroad, with 77.8% from the Russian Federation and 2.6% from Kazakhstan.
In January, the FREEDOM TV channel premiered the project of its own production “Candidate” with Ksenia Barvinenko – a series of short political sketches dedicated to the upcoming presidential “elections” in Russia. The January issues of the program dealt with the history of usurpation of power by the Crimean dictator and the lies of Putin, who promised not to change the Constitution of the Russian Federation and not to attack Ukraine. Besides in January, an updated cycle of the “Crisis of Putin’s Russia” started, the authors of which analyze why and what kind of disaster racism and Putinism will turn out for the Russian Federation.
The premiere issues of the cycle of projects dedicated to the revival of the historical memory of the indigenous peoples of Russia and their struggle for independence were about the history of the residents of the Kaliningrad region who support the idea of secession from the Russian Federation and the proclamation of the Baltic Republic. The audience of the Decolonization issue was 56.1% from Russia, 8.6% from Kazakhstan, 3.5% from Lithuania, and 95.2% from abroad. In the top cities by views – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Kaliningrad, and Nizhny Novgorod. The foreign audience of the issue on the conceptual project of an independent state from the Russian Federation – the Smolensk Republic was 96%, of which 53.2% – the Russian Federation, 8.7% – Kazakhstan, 3.3% – Uzbekistan. In the wake of the unrest in Bashkiria and the increased interest of Russian-speaking viewers in this topic, FREEDOM repeated the screening of the release of “Treasures of the Nation” with Denys Pokhyla about the historical fate of Bashkirs on the UNIAN YouTube platform. The video received 570 thousand views: 62.4% – from Russia, 14.7% – from Kazakhstan, 3.8% – from Uzbekistan, and 97% – overall views from abroad.
The top foreign countries in terms of views of FREEDOM on YouTube in January were: Russia (62.4%), Kazakhstan (4.5%), Uzbekistan (3.4%), and Belarus (2.7%). The first five cities are traditionally Russian cities, in January they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, and Yekaterinburg, which confirms the clear hit of FREEDOM content in the requests of the Russian-speaking audience abroad.
Expansion of the network of international distribution of the FREEDOM channel in countries with a significant share of Russian-speaking viewers is a priority task for foreign broadcasting. At the beginning of the year, two cable operators in Poland – Elsat sp. z o. and Virtua Operator received a license to retransmit Ukrainian foreign broadcasting. Also, FREEDOM became available to subscribers of one of the largest providers of digital television in Moldova DanisNet.
In January, the website of the FREEDOM TV channel and the FREEDOM digital news aggregator were repeatedly subjected to large-scale cyberattacks, which caused temporary disruption of resources and limited access to content for the audience.
In January, the total coverage of the channel’s Telegram accounts – FREEDOM and FREEDOM. LIFE reached 11.8 million. The views of FREEDOM on the TikTok platform continued to grow, reaching 5.4 million views per month.
*Note: Data given in the material as of January 31st, 2024. Data sources: analytical tools of digital platforms; Google Analytics; YouTube Studio channel FREEDOM.
FOR REFERENCE
FREEDOM is a channel of the Ukrainian state foreign broadcasting, aimed at Russian-speaking viewers outside Ukraine. FREEDOM is an instrument of destruction of Russian propaganda and a source of true information about Ukraine for Russian-speaking audiences abroad. Outside of Ukraine FREEDOM is available via satellite, cable, DTH, IPTV networks, and on ott-platforms. Also, FREEDOM can be viewed all over the world on the digital platforms of SE “The International Broadcasting Multimedia Platform of Ukraine” and Ukrainian media group partners of the channel – 1+1 media, Starlight Media, Inter Media Group.
The digital platforms broadcasting FREEDOM:
YouTube FREEDОМ website FREEDОМ Агрегатор FREEDОМ Facebook TikTok Telegram
YouTube UNІАN YouTube Groshi YouTube ТСН YouTube 1+1
YouTube ICTV YouTube ІНТЕР
