An additional 100 million hryvnias are being allocated for the telemarathon amid delays in budget payments

The state plans to spend an additional about 100 million hryvnias on content production for the "United News" telemarathon by the end of 2026. New procurements are taking place amid budget deficit, restrictions on financing capital works, delays in payments to local communities and problems with VAT refunds to business.

This is reported by "Our Money" with reference to data from the ProZorro electronic procurement system and the public spending portal Spending.

On October 6, the state enterprise "Multimedia Platform of Foreign Broadcasting of Ukraine" concluded three new contracts for the production of television content worth 75.02 million hryvnias. The services were ordered for October-December 2026.

Another contract worth approximately 25 million hryvnias is planned to be concluded with the television and radio company "Studio 1+1". The corresponding procurement is already in the customer's plans, but at the time of publication of the investigation, the contract had not yet been signed.

In April this year, the state already concluded four contracts with content producers for the telemarathon for a total amount of 637.96 million hryvnias.

After the October procurements, the value of contracts concluded for 2026 increased to 712.99 million hryvnias. If the planned agreement with "Studio 1+1" is also signed, the total value of orders may approach 738 million hryvnias.

The largest volumes of state funding in 2026 are allocated to the TV channels "My - Ukraine" and "SLM News" - approximately 204 million hryvnias each. The value of contracts with "Studio 1+1" is 179.17 million hryvnias, and with the "Inter" TV channel - 125.09 million hryvnias.

According to journalists' estimates, from March 2022 to October 7, 2026, content producers for the "United News" and "FreeDom" telemarathons, as well as subcontractors involved in the marathon of the parliamentary TV channel "Rada", have been paid a total of about 3.45 billion hryvnias.

Payments are ongoing even now. In particular, on October 3, the "Multimedia Platform of Foreign Broadcasting of Ukraine" transferred a total of 27.81 million hryvnias to the "Inter" and "My - Ukraine" TV channels.

New expenses for the telemarathon came at a time of worsening problems with state budget financing.

At the end of September, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a decision on prioritizing budget expenditures due to insufficient receipts of international financial assistance. In particular, the government provided for the possibility of temporarily restricting funding for expenditures that are not among the first-priority.

Priority remains defense, servicing the national debt, pensions, wages and social benefits. Among the expenditures whose funding it was decided to postpone are new construction, non-critical reconstructions, major repairs and landscaping.

At the same time, the restrictions are not a general prohibition of all budget payments. According to the clarification of the Ministry of Finance, they are applied depending on the availability of funds on the single treasury account. Payment for the production of television content also belongs to a different type of expenditure than capital construction.

Despite this, in practice difficulties arose even with financing critically important works.

As previously reported by "Kurs Ukrainy", the Association of Cities of Ukraine appealed to Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi due to the blocking of payments of local communities by the Treasury.

According to the Association, since September 9, local self-government bodies have faced the inability to pay for a number of necessary goods and services, even when relevant funds were in their accounts.

Problems affected procurement of fuel for municipal and emergency services, infrastructure repairs, preparation for the heating season and arrangement of invincibility centers. Also, communities reported about delays in payments for works on restoration of damaged facilities and protection of energy infrastructure.

Earlier, journalists of "Our Money" also recorded a sharp reduction in payments for construction works in September. In particular, difficulties arose with settlements for the construction of protective structures for energy facilities.

In parallel with problems of local budgets, Ukrainian enterprises began to feel payment delays.

On October 7, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on finance, taxation and customs policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, reported that business has not been receiving budget VAT refunds for three weeks.

According to him, the problem is serious, and the resumption of payments is possible in the best case in two to three weeks. He linked this term to the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of legislative decisions necessary to obtain about 4 billion euros of international financing.

Thus, against the backdrop of delays in settlements with business and local communities, the state continues to finance the production of content for the telemarathon and enter into new contracts with television channels.

At the same time, the published data in themselves do not indicate violations of budget legislation during these payments. They demonstrate the difference between financing individual state programs in conditions of limited budget resources.

According to materials: "Our Money", Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, Danylo Hetmantsev