What information do today’s young people need, and how can Suspilne Ukraine meet these needs? These were the topics discussed at the two-day “Suspilne × Dialogue × Youth” workshop, organized by the NGO “Detector Media”* with the support of Suspilne Ukraine on June 10–11 at the Media Center Ukraine in Kyiv. Representatives of youth civil society organizations and the broadcaster’s team joined the discussion. The ideas developed during the event will be used to create a concept for Suspilne’s work with a youth audience.
Why Suspilne Ukraine is strengthening its work with youth
In 2020, Suspilne Ukraine approved the Concept for Children’s and Teen Broadcasting. Since then, the team has been developing projects for children and teens, including “Brobaks” and “Collider.” The next step is to develop a comprehensive concept for engaging with youth. In his opening remarks, Mykola Chernotytskyi, head of the managing board of Suspilne, emphasized that it is “important for the team to maintain dialogue and stay connected with young people.”
“This year, we are working on creating a concept specifically for engaging with a youth audience. We are increasingly thinking not in terms of traditional platforms, but in terms of content, and only then its distribution. To put it simply, television and radio have long ceased to be our primary distribution platforms. That is why it is very important for us to hear your opinion. I hope that our joint work will be fruitful,” said Mykola Chernotytskyi.
From left to right: Vadym Miskyi, Svitlana Ostapa, Mykola Chernotytskyi
Vadym Miskyi, a member and secretary of the Supervisory Board of Suspilne, and program director of the NGO “Detector Media,” noted that the main goal of the meeting was to build a long-term partnership.
“Youth civil society organizations already reach a significant portion of Ukrainian youth through their activities. As a media company, it is important for Suspilne to think about the bigger picture—about all Ukrainian youth; this is one of our most important audiences. The outcomes of the workshop, which brought together three dozen leading Ukrainian youth organizations, allowed our team to gain a deeper understanding of the issues and needs, and also generated brilliant ideas for better work with youth. “The broadcaster’s management and representatives from various departments participated in the discussions; this is an extremely fruitful collaboration that opens up new perspectives for all participants,” said Vadym Miskyi.
What Suspilne Ukraine Already Offers Its Young Audience
Dmytro Khorkin, a member of the managing board of Suspilne, responsible for content, licensing, and programming, spoke about approaches to working with a youth audience.
Dmytro Khorkin
“We want to collaborate with you and hear your ideas. We need a strong pool of experts from various fields—economists, political scientists, managers, public figures, and people with practical experience. At the same time, our goal is not to create educational content, but rather popular content with an educational component that helps young people better understand themselves, their professions, opportunities for growth, and so on,” Dmytro Khorkin told the partners.
He also noted that it is particularly important for Suspilne to work with community representatives from different parts of the country and to take into account the diversity of their needs.
Yuliya Dychuk
Yulia Dychuk, head of Children’s and Teen Content at Suspilne, explained that the team is working not only on content production but also on building a comprehensive ecosystem for children and teenagers:
“In addition to having our projects, such as ‘Brobax’ and ‘Collider,’ available online, we also strive to engage with our audience in person. For the first time, our children’s zone was open for four days at the ‘Book Arsenal.’ We also have a series of children’s books, coloring books based on fairy tales, and a music notebook so that teachers and children can sing songs together. With our teen team, we just wrapped up an educational tour of schools, where we met with over 350 students. We held media literacy workshops for them and discussed the content that interests them. After all, a live connection always works better. We receive feedback, analyze it, and understand what we’re doing well and what needs to be revised.”
Oleksandra Zakharchenko
Oleksandra Zakharchenko, director of the digital content and social media department at Suspilne, spoke about working with a youth audience on digital platforms. According to her, projects such as “Slay Show,” “Artillery,” “UNZIP,” “Let’s Culturize”, and “Decolonizers” foster active communities around them:
“We listen closely to our 25–35-year-old audience and create content that helps them better understand the world and its trends, explore new topics, find like-minded people, and feel part of important conversations. What is most valuable to us is feedback from people who tell us how our content has influenced their thoughts, views, or decisions.”
How Young People Consume Information
A study on media consumption among young people was presented at the event. Julia Volokh, director of the public opinion research department at Suspilne Ukraine, research department, presented the results of the “MediaTrack 2025” study, created by the Suspilne together with partners,** and the “Trust in News Barometer,” conducted by the Suspilne in collaboration with Gradus Research.
“Over 50% of people do not turn to search engines or news aggregators, but may simply ask artificial intelligence what is happening in the world. And this trend will only intensify. At the same time, the level of trust in AI responses remains quite high, and therefore the issues of fact-checking and countering disinformation are becoming even more relevant,” says Julia Volokh.
Meanwhile, Vadym Miskyi, presenting the results of the “Media Literacy Index of Ukrainians” study, which is conducted annually by the NGO “Detector Media,” drew attention to another trend:
“The use of artificial intelligence is spreading much faster than the skills needed to work with it. According to the study, 45.5% of Ukrainians aged 18 to 25 do not have above-average AI literacy. This means that neither the education system nor the media landscape is keeping pace with the rapid development of these technologies.”
Julia Volokh
Vadym Miskyi
What We Achieved Together
During the two-day workshop, participants identified:
- what information different youth groups need;
- what topics, formats, and platforms interest them;
- what role Suspilne should play in meeting the information needs of young people;
- how Suspilne can collaborate with youth organizations.
These findings will serve as the foundation for developing a concept and further work on the development of Suspilne’s youth programming.
“The meeting with young people during the conference with youth civil society organizations was very important to me. I saw a genuine interest in the work of the public broadcaster. Young people not only suggested ways to collaborate and said they wanted to be more visible, but also asked how they could be of use to Suspilne. I think that after getting to know Suspilne’s content and the people who produce it, as well as our plans, representatives of youth NGOs began to better understand this reform. The youth audience is very important to us because this is the generation that will rebuild Ukraine after a full-scale war,” noted Svitlana Ostapa, head of the supervisory board of Suspilne.
In addition to the discussion program, the event’s agenda for participants included attending a concert by the national television and radio project “I Am a Virtuoso!” at the Ukrainian Radio Recording Studio and a tour of Suspilne Ukraine is central office.
Tour of Suspilne Ukraine
*The event was organized by the NGO “Detector Media” with the support of the “Askold and Dir” Foundation, administered by ISAR Ednannia as part of the project “ Strong Civil Society of Ukraine — a Driver Towards Reforms and Democracy,” funded by Norway and Sweden.
**The study was conducted by Kantar, Ipsos, and MZ Hub as part of and thanks to the project “Support for Editorial and Digital Transformation and the Development of Public Broadcasting’s Corporate Culture in Ukraine,” funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida. Partners included Evolution Media and 1+1 media.
Suspilne Ukraine is an independent media company with a strong presence across all platforms: the TV channels Pershyi, Suspilne Kultura, Suspilne Sport, and a national network of local channels; the radio stations Ukrainske Radio, Radio Promin, Radio Kultura, Radiotochka. Find only verified news on suspilne.media, as well as on our national and local digital platforms. We broadcast in minority languages, represent Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest, develop the children’s platform Brobaks, and train media professionals through the Public Media Academy. Our Suspilne Mediateka platform offers unique video and audio archives dating from the 1920s to today. Defending freedom in Ukraine.
Photo by Igor Vasiliyev / “Detector Media”
