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PROPERTY REDISTRIBUTION. IS IT TURN FOR TV CHANNELS NOW?
Aravot
Feb 24 2009
Armenia
On 6 November 2008 when the Armenian government took a decision to
"set up a non-commercial state organization called 'public relations
and information centre'", journalist organizations and leaders of
a several media expressed their concern that this entity will have
the mission of the Glavlit [Main Administration for the Protection
of State Secrets in the Press under the USSR Council of Ministers],
which existed during the Soviet totalitarian regime and was fortunately
dissolved.
Let us remind that the centre to operate under the Armenian
president has been tasked with very pretentious functions, including
"implementation of general and topical monitoring and analysis of
the mass media outlets, carrying out studies regarding the mass media
market, on the number of printed copies, sales volume and coverage,
diversity, transparency and other issues".
The authors of the initiative assured that the centre's activities
will be rather of scientific-research nature and bear no connection to
the censorship or restriction of mass media activities. It turned out
that the concerns were not groundless. During the "Safe TV environment"
discussion at the Ani Plaza Hotel on 20 February, it became clear from
the words of a representative of the above centre that in future there
will be legislative initiatives with the purpose of encoding topics of
some TV programmes and clarifying the issue of their broadcasting hours
and reasonability of broadcasting/not broadcasting of some programmes.
On the same day, 20 February, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
discussed "the recently recorded public concerns over the quality of TV
and radio broadcasts", the necessity of qualitative changes to those
and issues of legislative reforms in the sphere with Grigor Amalyan,
the chairman of Armenia's National TV and Radio Commission. It is
significant that the very busy president of the country spent an
hour of his valuable time on discussing with Amalyan, for example,
not the possibilities of carrying out the European Court of Human
Right's decision regarding the A1plus [a TV which was closed down in
2002 ], but on management of TV broadcasting controlled by himself.
Government set to "redistribute" TV broadcasting - media rep
The chairman of the Meltex Ltd and the director of the A1plus,
Mesrop Movsesyan, tried to guess the cause of the above initiative
and interests of the Armenian president. He told Aravot that this
is an attempt to create artificial conditions to close down some
TV companies, and that the authorities are already working in this
direction. "New owners have emerged in this sphere, new rules of the
game are being developed; and maybe, the authorities believe that time
has come to filter the sphere and to keep only those TV companies,
which are more convenient for them and have "grown" under their wing",
Movsesyan said. He believes that the authentic aim of this initiative
is not cleaning the TV air of topics and street language. This is the
"start" of the game, which has been discussed over the past one year;
and now they try to quickly carry it out for some reasons.
Movsesyan supposes that pressure upon TV companies will start in
May. "It is already being outlined who will suffer from the first
blow", the Meltex chairman said, noting the ALM [Alternative Media],
AR, Shant and Hay TV [private] TV companies are on the list. In
a comment that according to some reports Hay TV belongs to Serzh
Sargsyan's son-in-law, Mikayel Minasyan, Mr Movsesyan did not rule
it out, saying the TV company will be exchanged for shares of a TV
company with high rating. He said that Kentron TV company can also
experience pressures and its owner, he [Movsesyan] said, "will be
able to survive the pressures".
So what is the real aim of the authorities - censorship or starting
redistribution of the TV business? "The content of all TV channels
is fully beneficial for the authorities. I believe, the issue in
question is about redistribution. The game has already started;
there are already active players in attack", Movsesyan said.
Aravot
Feb 24 2009
Armenia
On 6 November 2008 when the Armenian government took a decision to
"set up a non-commercial state organization called 'public relations
and information centre'", journalist organizations and leaders of
a several media expressed their concern that this entity will have
the mission of the Glavlit [Main Administration for the Protection
of State Secrets in the Press under the USSR Council of Ministers],
which existed during the Soviet totalitarian regime and was fortunately
dissolved.
Let us remind that the centre to operate under the Armenian
president has been tasked with very pretentious functions, including
"implementation of general and topical monitoring and analysis of
the mass media outlets, carrying out studies regarding the mass media
market, on the number of printed copies, sales volume and coverage,
diversity, transparency and other issues".
The authors of the initiative assured that the centre's activities
will be rather of scientific-research nature and bear no connection to
the censorship or restriction of mass media activities. It turned out
that the concerns were not groundless. During the "Safe TV environment"
discussion at the Ani Plaza Hotel on 20 February, it became clear from
the words of a representative of the above centre that in future there
will be legislative initiatives with the purpose of encoding topics of
some TV programmes and clarifying the issue of their broadcasting hours
and reasonability of broadcasting/not broadcasting of some programmes.
On the same day, 20 February, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
discussed "the recently recorded public concerns over the quality of TV
and radio broadcasts", the necessity of qualitative changes to those
and issues of legislative reforms in the sphere with Grigor Amalyan,
the chairman of Armenia's National TV and Radio Commission. It is
significant that the very busy president of the country spent an
hour of his valuable time on discussing with Amalyan, for example,
not the possibilities of carrying out the European Court of Human
Right's decision regarding the A1plus [a TV which was closed down in
2002 ], but on management of TV broadcasting controlled by himself.
Government set to "redistribute" TV broadcasting - media rep
The chairman of the Meltex Ltd and the director of the A1plus,
Mesrop Movsesyan, tried to guess the cause of the above initiative
and interests of the Armenian president. He told Aravot that this
is an attempt to create artificial conditions to close down some
TV companies, and that the authorities are already working in this
direction. "New owners have emerged in this sphere, new rules of the
game are being developed; and maybe, the authorities believe that time
has come to filter the sphere and to keep only those TV companies,
which are more convenient for them and have "grown" under their wing",
Movsesyan said. He believes that the authentic aim of this initiative
is not cleaning the TV air of topics and street language. This is the
"start" of the game, which has been discussed over the past one year;
and now they try to quickly carry it out for some reasons.
Movsesyan supposes that pressure upon TV companies will start in
May. "It is already being outlined who will suffer from the first
blow", the Meltex chairman said, noting the ALM [Alternative Media],
AR, Shant and Hay TV [private] TV companies are on the list. In
a comment that according to some reports Hay TV belongs to Serzh
Sargsyan's son-in-law, Mikayel Minasyan, Mr Movsesyan did not rule
it out, saying the TV company will be exchanged for shares of a TV
company with high rating. He said that Kentron TV company can also
experience pressures and its owner, he [Movsesyan] said, "will be
able to survive the pressures".
So what is the real aim of the authorities - censorship or starting
redistribution of the TV business? "The content of all TV channels
is fully beneficial for the authorities. I believe, the issue in
question is about redistribution. The game has already started;
there are already active players in attack", Movsesyan said.