“The mass media in Armenia is on a dangerous margin of passing from a ‘partially free’ assessment to a ‘not free’ one,” says the report on the research conducted by the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression in August-September, 2010.
According to the research implemented by the methodology of an authoritative international organization Freedom House, the level of freedom of the Armenian mass media has been assessed 58, 6 points. According to the sample methodology the country is assessed free in case of 0-30 points, partially free in case of 31-60 points and not free when the points are 61-100.
The survey has been conducted among the representatives of the most well-known medium and media organizations. Only 6 percent of them have assessed the media as free, 46 percent – as partially free and 48 percent – as not free.
The research authors represented these data during the “Media in Armenia: References of 2010 and Tendencies of 2011” conference on January 27. The conference consisted of two main parts. The first part was devoted to last year’s legislative processes and their consequences, particularly to the amendments to the Law ‘on Television and Radio’, and the second part to the current state and tendencies of the media and freedom of expression.
“The mass media in Armenia is on a dangerous margin of passing from a ‘partially free’ assessment to a ‘not free’ one,” says the report on the research conducted by the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression in August-September, 2010.
According to the research implemented by the methodology of an authoritative international organization Freedom House, the level of freedom of the Armenian mass media has been assessed 58, 6 points. According to the sample methodology the country is assessed free in case of 0-30 points, partially free in case of 31-60 points and not free when the points are 61-100.
The survey has been conducted among the representatives of the most well-known medium and media organizations. Only 6 percent of them have assessed the media as free, 46 percent – as partially free and 48 percent – as not free.
The research authors represented these data during the “Media in Armenia: References of 2010 and Tendencies of 2011” conference on January 27. The conference consisted of two main parts. The first part was devoted to last year’s legislative processes and their consequences, particularly to the amendments to the Law ‘on Television and Radio’, and the second part to the current state and tendencies of the media and freedom of expression.
Shortly before the conference the media issue was also touched upon by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, during his visit to Armenia in January. At a press conference, before leaving Armenia, he expressed concern that “pluralism is not sufficiently provided in the media of Armenia.”
“I consider today’s system fails to guarantee pluralism,” he said.
Thomas Hammarberg mentioned that he has scrupulously discussed the issue of freedom and pluralism provision, especially in the field of television during his meetings in Armenia. He has met with representatives of the state and political, as well as of non-governmental and media organizations. Hammarberg greatly evaluated the meeting with Grigor Amalyan, head of the National Committee on Television and Radio (NCTR). He mentioned they have touched upon “A1+” and “Gala” TVs which lost the last broadcast licensing competition.
Hammarberg promised to refer to the conclusions in his final report. While the European official is preparing his report in Strasbourg, local experts gave rough assessments to the current issues in the field of television during the conference held in Yerevan.
“I dare to make a categorical statement on that, actually, no competition of allotting TV frequencies has been held in Armenia,” said journalist Anna Israelyan of the “Aravot” daily during the conference.
As proof, she quoted the interview with the owner of “Grand Holding” Company Hrant Vardanyan (also the owner of “Ar” and “Hayrenik” TV channels) published in the “Hraparak” daily a few days ago.
To “Hraparak” journalist’s questions “What did happen in reality? Rumors were circulating that “Ar” TV belonging to you should be closed, but it wasn’t. Did you come to an agreement? Were there any problems solved that it was not closed?” Hrant Vardanyan has answered, “Simply there was a decision: two channels were considered to be many. We were allowed to have only one channel, where we comprised the programs of the two channels – “Ar” and “Hayrenik”.”
According to Israelyan businessman Vardanyan’s words certify that everything in this competition has been predetermined beforehand. “A lot of medium have represented in advance the list of those TV companies which would receive a license and those which would lose the competition. And the contest results confirmed the circulating rumors. Hrant Vardanyan’s statement, too, certified that there has been an agreement before the competition,” said Israelyan.
By the way, according to the legislation of Armenia, a person or a company cannot dispose two broadcasting licenses. In this case, actually, “Grand Holding” had received and disposed two TV channels. The two channels were combined in one only after January 20, as “Hayrenik” TV did not participate in the frequency allotting competition, and the mentioned frequency stopped to be applied on the occasion of transition processes to digital broadcasting.
The conference where mainly the current issues and tendencies of the field of television were raised was not covered by any of the TV companies, though the organizers noted that all of the TV channels have been informed on the event beforehand.
The conference was organized by the Partnership For Open Society (PFOS) initiative in cooperation with the OSCE Office in Yerevan and the Council of Europe in Armenia.