Radio stations in Ukraine and their contests: where an entry can win
Contests run by radio stations in Ukraine that the material documents are few: Radio Svoboda's Christmas and New Year contest is the one named, and its rules say participants pay their own costs. Ukraine's law on television and radio broadcasting covers programmes that carry paid interactive contests, and a bill reported in December 2010 proposed banning contests whose terms require paid entry. The material gives no public-vote count, no voting window and no results channel for any station.
Rechecked on 22 October 2026.
Radio Svoboda's 2015 rules put the cost of taking part on entrants
The one station contest the material names is Radio Svoboda's Christmas and New Year contest, and its rules, dated 25 December 2015, say that participants pay all their own costs of taking part. The clause places the cost of entering on the participant, not on the station. It allocates expenses, and it says nothing about prizes, votes or how a winner is chosen.
A cost clause is a term about money spent on participation, and it sits apart from the question of who may enter. The material does not say whether that 2015 contest asked for a paid step to enter, so this page does not say that it did. A reader checking any station's contest should separate three questions: what taking part costs, who may take part, and how the result is reached.
The clause also does not say whether that contest had a public vote at all, or how one was counted. Those are different lines in a set of rules, and a reader who finds only the cost line should record the other two as missing rather than assume them. The station's full rules page is where the rest of the terms belongs, and a reader should check that page instead of a summary.
- The 2015 rules were published for a Christmas and New Year contest.
- Participants pay all their own costs of taking part.
- The clause allocates expenses and says nothing about prizes.
- A station's full rules page holds the rest of its terms.
- The material names one station contest in Ukraine.
The broadcast law names paid interactive contests as a category
Article 55 1 of Ukraine's law on television and radio broadcasting covers the broadcast of programmes that carry paid interactive contests, with games and quizzes given as the examples. Because the article is about broadcasts, it reaches a station's programmes, not only its written rules. A station planning a contest with any paid element should read the article first, since the material gives its subject and not its penalties.
The category is interactive contests, and the examples are games and quizzes. A reader should not stretch that category to every call-in or listener giveaway, because the material does not list those. Whether a particular programme falls inside the category is a question the station has to answer for itself, under the law's own wording, and the material records no decision on any programme.
Paid entry is where the article matters most to a listener. A contest whose terms require a paid step to become a participant is the kind of contest the 2010 bill proposed to ban, so the article and the bill together show where Ukrainian rules have looked at paid elements. The material does not say whether the bill passed or whether the article was changed since, and this page does not say so.
- Article 55 1 covers programmes that carry paid interactive contests.
- The examples the article gives are games and quizzes.
- The article concerns broadcasts, so it reaches programmes as well as rules pages.
- Paid entry is the line the 2010 bill would have drawn.
- The material does not say whether the article was changed since.
A 2010 bill proposed a ban, and the material does not show its fate
UNIAN reported on 22 December 2010 that a bill in the Verkhovna Rada proposed banning the broadcast of contests whose terms require paid entry to become a participant. The report describes a proposal. It does not describe a vote on the bill, a committee's view or an enacted text, so none of those is stated here. A reader should treat the bill as a 2010 proposal and not as a current rule.
The bill's subject was contests whose terms require paid entry, which is narrower than all contests on the air. A station running a contest with no paid entry is outside the bill's wording as reported, though that does not show the station is outside any other rule. The material does not describe the bill's penalties, its exemptions or any version that followed it.
Read together, the three texts give a narrow picture. The law article covers paid interactive contests on broadcast, the 2010 bill proposed a ban on contests with paid entry, and the 2015 station rules put the cost of taking part on the participant. Together they show where Ukrainian rules have looked at paid elements, and they show nothing about how a count is run or how a result is announced.
- UNIAN reported the bill on 22 December 2010.
- The report describes a proposal, not an enacted text.
- The bill concerned contests whose terms require paid entry.
- The material does not show whether the bill passed.
- The bill's penalties and exemptions are not described anywhere in the material.
The record is silent on votes, counts, dates and results
Nothing in the sources read for this page says how a radio station contest in Ukraine counts votes. The 2015 Radio Svoboda clause concerns costs, the law article concerns the broadcast of paid interactive contests, and the bill concerns paid entry. A count method, a tally, a tiebreak or a check on repeated votes is absent from all three, so this page does not describe one.
Opening and closing dates are missing for the same reason. The 2015 rules carry the date 25 December 2015, and that is the date of the rules, not a voting window for the contest. A rules date is not an opening date or a closing date, and a reader who sees one should not read it as the start or the end of a vote. The sources give no window for any radio contest in Ukraine.
Results are missing too. The sources do not say where a station announces a winner, whether on air, on its website or in print. The record also says nothing about disqualification or platform rules for a station contest, so a reader has to look for those clauses in the contest's own terms. A reader who needs the result should keep a copy of the announcement, because a results page can change after it is read.
- No source read here gives a count method for a radio contest.
- The 2015 rules carry a date, not a voting window.
- A rules date is not an opening or a closing date.
- The sources do not say where a station announces a winner.
- The record says nothing about disqualification for a station contest.
How a reader checks a station contest before entering
Start with the station's own rules for the contest in question, and read the cost clause first, because the 2015 example puts participation costs on the entrant. Then check whether the terms require a paid step to become a participant, since that is the line the law article and the 2010 bill both touch. Only after those two checks does a reader need the questions about votes and results.
If the station's rules are silent on how votes are counted, that silence is itself the finding, and the reader should record it rather than fill it in. Write to the station and ask the three questions the record leaves open: how votes are counted, when voting opens and closes, and where results are published. The record also says nothing about disqualification or platform rules, so a reader should ask about those clauses in the same message. Keep the reply, because a written answer is a better record than a memory of a call.
A reader worried about a fake contest should check that the rules and the announcement come from the station itself, not from a repost or a summary, this one included. The page does not say whether any contest on Ukrainian radio is lawful, because the material holds no ruling on one. The article and the bill are texts a reader can read directly, and the station's own rules are the document that governs the entry.
- Read the station's own rules before anything else.
- Check whether the terms require a paid step to become a participant.
- Ask the station in writing how votes are counted.
- Record the station's silence on counting rather than filling it in.
- A summary page is not a substitute for the contest's own terms.
Rules that apply
This entry was checked on 22 October 2026 against the sources read for it: Radio Svoboda's contest rules dated 25 December 2015, the text of Article 55 1 of Ukraine's law on television and radio broadcasting, and a UNIAN report of 22 December 2010 on a bill in the Verkhovna Rada. Those sources cover one station's contest, one law article and one bill, so the page makes no wider claim about radio contests in Ukraine. No later rules, law status or results page was reviewed, because none was found in the record, and the questions about current contests stay open.
What we decline
No current radio contest is confirmed on this page, and it gives no voting window, count method or results channel for any station. It does not say that the 2010 bill became law, because the material does not show that. It makes no claim that every radio contest in Ukraine follows the 2015 Radio Svoboda rules, and it does not say whether any contest broadcast on air is lawful. A purchase of votes is not treated here as a route any rule allows, and a contest's own terms decide whether a bought vote counts.
Questions and answers
The material names one radio station contest: Radio Svoboda's Christmas and New Year contest, whose rules are dated 25 December 2015. Those rules set out the cost of taking part, but the material does not say that the contest used a public vote. No other station and no other public-vote contest appears in the record, so this page names no second station and cannot list more.
The material does not say. None of the sources read for this page describes a count, a tally, a tiebreak or a check for repeated votes, and the 2015 Radio Svoboda rules address costs alone. A reader who needs the method has to ask the station for its written counting rules. Where a station publishes no method, the reader should record that gap instead of assuming one.
The material gives no voting window for any radio station contest. The Radio Svoboda rules are dated 25 December 2015, but a rules date is not an opening date, and nothing in the record shows when that contest's voting began or ended. A reader looking at a current contest has to take the window from the station's own announcement, with the year printed beside each date.
The material does not say who may vote in any radio station contest, so this page cannot say that anyone can. The 2015 Radio Svoboda rules place the cost of taking part on participants, which tells a reader who pays to enter, not who is eligible. The 2010 bill concerned contests whose terms require paid entry, which is the one eligibility line the record touches, and the record does not show whether it became law.
The material shows one station's published rules: Radio Svoboda's Christmas and New Year contest rules, dated 25 December 2015, which say that participants pay their own costs. It shows no other station's rules and no general duty on stations to publish any. A reader who wants the rules of a current contest has to look on the station's own channels, not in a summary such as this one.
The material does not say where any radio station announces its results. It names no results page, broadcast or printed notice for the Radio Svoboda contest, so this page does not name a channel. A reader who needs the result of a particular contest should look for the announcement on that station's own channel and keep a copy, because a results page can change after it is read.