Ukraine’s broadcasting regulator, the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting, has refused to cancel 13 formal warnings issued to the channel MEGOGO SPORT. At its September 17 meeting the council found nothing new in the broadcaster’s arguments, Ukrainian outlet Detector Media reported.
The council issued those warnings in August over three groups of violations. They covered ads for nicotine pouches, a failure to separate commercial breaks from the rest of the programming, and Betking gambling ads that ran at 12:57 and 14:25. Ukrainian law allows gambling advertising only after 11 p.m.
Council member Maksym Onopriienko said the regulator treats every ad placement as a separate case. “Each individual distribution of advertising is a separate fact,” he said, adding that a broadcaster has to set every commercial break apart from the surrounding content.
Official monitoring logged seven such cases. The channel pointed to its own on-screen graphics, which in its view showed viewers where the programme ended and the ads began. That does not remove the direct requirement to use the word “advertising”, Onopriienko said.
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The nicotine pouch defence did not work either. MEGOGO argued it had no intent and therefore no fault. Onopriienko also dismissed the reference to the technical realities of live broadcasting. In his words, they do not disprove the fact that the ads ran in a banned slot, and they do not release the broadcaster from liability.
Iryna Katiushchenko, head of MEGOGO’s legal department, said the company had no way to influence the feed. The Betking spots were aired live by its partner, the football federation, she said, and the nicotine patches promoted on air contain no tobacco. “A decision with this many warnings came as an unexpected and sad fact for us,” she said.
On the missing labels, Katiushchenko did not dispute that the word “advertising” never appeared on screen. She argued that the law lets broadcasters separate programming from ads in other ways, and that the channel’s visuals made the difference clear to viewers.
Live football is where the Betking ads ran, and it remains central to the channel. MEGOGO secured exclusive Ukrainian rights to UEFA’s Nations League and EURO 2028 earlier this month.
