A few weeks ago, Olexii Goncharenko, General Producer of Friends Productions, announced that his company, Friends Production, which is one of the biggest independent producers in Ukraine, is finally starting work again with two new projects for TET. These new shows are the original format My Super Family and the local version of Global Agency’s My Wife Rules.

The announcement marked a new important milestone for the gradual recovery of the Ukrainian TV market – the restart of entertainment show productions a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Georgi R. Chakarov called Olexii to talk about this great news and also to discuss the dynamic changes that are happening in Ukraine as a result of the war. Even before the start of the interview, Goncharenko pointed to what is perhaps the biggest change for Ukrainian society and therefore television – the switch to the Ukrainian language:

By the way, there is also an interesting fact about the Ukrainian language on Ukrainian television. You know that our language law has already been adopted in principle for a long time; for example, that all of the participants of the shows should speak Ukrainian. I just thought with horror how would we be able to find people to speak Ukrainian. But the war accelerated everything. Now, as we are looking only for Ukrainian speakers, it was such a pleasant surprise for me that I discovered that it is not difficult. That is, a very large number of people switched to Ukrainian.

Earlier, several programs were released, especially The Bachelor, which was filmed before the war and it was released with Ukrainian dubbing. It was such a discomfort for the audience.

In these 25 years of my career, I never asked myself: how is it possible to speak the language of another country in Ukraine? It never occurred to me. This is precisely now an indicator of these processes and it is happening very quickly now. In one year it has already become absolutely possible, probable and even natural. Because in reality, I did not expect such a quick recovery and self-awareness from Ukrainians, and their dignity. So that's good. It’s already a victory.

I totally agree with you! So, how does it feel to be back in the studios?

This is the first and longest pause in twenty-five years of my career and I hope the last one. I have always been working. Just before the full-scale war started I had thirteen projects. That was a record for my entire career. I even joked with myself that the war probably came to stop me. It was very tragic for me – because we also had to do Survivor for 1+1, so many projects, really. That’s why returning after such a horrible pause is true happiness. Of course, it would be great to have all thirteen projects back, but for now we have two.

I was also thinking that this pause could turn out to be much longer and I would have to go to other countries, and I even turned to my international partners, like Endemol and Fremantle. They all helped with contacts, but I realized that I was not really ready to go anywhere. Because for a creative producer in a different country, it’s not impossible but this is quite hard because our knowledge is based on knowing the mentality of the local people. And this is not about beginning a new, it’s simply about knowing the details, the history and humor of the people, to know what people will be interested in. So I am thankful that this pause was not critically long.

How long was the pause actually? When did you start talking about projects with the channels again?

It was in November. We started talking about concrete things – shows, contracts, etc. We lost the Ukraina channel which was shut down, so we have less commissioners – 1+1 Media and Starlight Media. But at the same time, we have this situation where the in-house productions of the channels are also very busy making shows. To me this sort of practice is non-competitive because they do not function in real market conditions. This is still something left from the past and it is actually more expensive than external productions, and even more so, because now there is not such a big volume of commissions, and it is even less effective. As a matter of fact, 1+1 are already giving this up. However, SLM still can’t get over this, but I believe we will see some positive developments. External producers offer a good balance between quality and price, so let’s see.

How did you choose the shows that you are now producing for TET?

The first one (My Super Family) is a show we developed. We had this idea before the war and I understood that now it is even more relevant. This recipe for a happy family, to go and see how in such tough conditions Ukrainians not only survive but remain happy, make money, raise children, and even find time for good things like special dinners, etc. Now, it is even more timely and when I presented it to TET they agreed that this is really important. And because they now had to expand their audience since 1+1 airs the news telethon, they liked it. Furthermore, this is not a “freak show” like Come Dine with Me where people would do anything to shock people. This will be a challenge who is really better, but they are all good, it’s more about the best values.

The culinary show was offered by the channel, based on the Global Agency format My Wife Rules. Right now, there is great demand for positive emotions. People want to take a break from the news and that is why the channels look for entertainment content. They want to show that life continues and there is still happiness. This is a studio culinary show about family values with elements of comedy. Our famous singer Olya Polyakova is the presenter, and she is also known as a culinary blogger which is also important because she has an attitude to the cooking ideas, and she also likes to talk about family relationships. Our chef is from Lviv. He took part in MasterChef. Professionals.

Both shows will have 16 episodes. My Wife Rules will start at the end of March and My Super Family will also be this spring.

What has changed now during the shooting and production process?

This is really hard. We have two factors: the curfew doesn’t allow us to shoot too long because we have to finish by 21.30, so everything has to be perfectly timed; and there are also the air raid alerts – if we understand that missiles have been launched, we stop shooting. It is war but we have such desire to shoot that we find all sorts of ways to complete the shooting because we don’t want to lose the people and we want to give them work. People can’t wait for things to get back to normal, they need a job. We have already lost lots of people in our industry. If we lose them now, we might not be able to bring them back later. Actually, only one of our shooting days had rocket launches and we had a delay, and no one wanted extra payment, as people understood that this is an extraordinary situation.

What about the budgets?

The budgets are lower but not that much because not much has changed. The curfew and the air alert pauses make things more expensive because sometimes participants have to stay the night over and we pay their hotels. I can say that there is not much difference because channels also do not pick expensive projects. They know what they can afford and choose the formats that they can make now. So, in the coming years I don’t expect that they will be producing big budget shows.

Are channels now willing to invest more in original formats?

Unfortunately, no, because they are still trying to get back on their feet. We will know more about that later in the spring season, even in the fall. Now is the time to look for ideas which would be sold on all types of platforms and other territories. The channels will be forced not just to buy some format, but they will have to consider many more factors, so formats that they would be able to sell as ideas, as ready-made, to digital platforms, etc. The idea would be to increase revenues from such productions. So, I think they would definitely need people who can come up with such fresh ideas. Right now, we don’t have “format companies” in Ukraine. It must be some independent creators, or special units at the channels or production companies. And of course, the initiative for this should come from the commissioners.

For example, we are now developing an idea which I like a lot, and we will be pitching it to channels. It is fresh and not that expensive. You can sell it and place it on various platforms. So, we, as a production company, are ready for this. All we need is support from the commissioners. Right now, this is not happening, but we are not losing hope.