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No Advertising on Public TV: “Asparez” Club Registering New Violations on “H1”

For already 10 months the Journalists’ Club “Asparez” in Gyumri has been implementing an investigation of the TV channel “H1” to find out how the Public Television Company follow provisions of the law related to the volume and distribution of commercial advertising during the TV programs.

Monitoring of the TV channel programs is being realized in Gyumri, where the channel “H1” is broadcasted 17-21 hours per day.

The monitoring results are represented phase by phase, and a few days ago the president of Journalists’ Club “Asparez” Levon Barseghyan and media expert Mesrop Harutyunyan presented the results of months May and June of this year and the conclusions drawn. Representatives of “H1” were also invited to the presentation of the report, but they were absent.

Authors of the monitoring noted that “H1” broadcasted 171-minute disguised advertisement during the studied 27 days in May and 282-minute hidden advertising in the course of 29 days in June. According to the study more than 10 percent of advertising has been broadcasted on “H1” instead of the intended 7 percent.

The project director Levon Barseghyan believes that the Public TV no longer differs from the private television companies.

For already 10 months the Journalists’ Club “Asparez” in Gyumri has been implementing an investigation of the TV channel “H1” to find out how the Public Television Company follow provisions of the law related to the volume and distribution of commercial advertising during the TV programs.

Monitoring of the TV channel programs is being realized in Gyumri, where the channel “H1” is broadcasted 17-21 hours per day.

The monitoring results are represented phase by phase, and a few days ago the president of Journalists’ Club “Asparez” Levon Barseghyan and media expert Mesrop Harutyunyan presented the results of months May and June of this year and the conclusions drawn. Representatives of “H1” were also invited to the presentation of the report, but they were absent.

Authors of the monitoring noted that “H1” broadcasted 171-minute disguised advertisement during the studied 27 days in May and 282-minute hidden advertising in the course of 29 days in June. According to the study more than 10 percent of advertising has been broadcasted on “H1” instead of the intended 7 percent.

The project director Levon Barseghyan believes that the Public TV no longer differs from the private television companies.

“The idea of having reputation should be removed from the philosophy of Public Television. It is а supplement to non-existent social needs. And here there is symbiosis: on one hand it is called Public with a huge amount of money allotted from the state budget, on the other hand – a tidy rival television company,” says Barseghyan.

10 million dollars are allocated to the Public TV and Radio Company from the state budget annually. And the profit received from advertising is 3 million dollars. Expert Mesrop Harutyunyan proposes to make the budget allocations 13 million dollors and renounce the ads’ broadcasting.

“There should be one public TV, which will be broadcasted without commercial breaks,” he believes.

Harutyunyan notes that even the news programs on “H1” are interrupted with commercial ads, which according to him is a kind of ethical violation. Observations conducted in June registered 42 cases of violations during the news program “Haylur” (Not allowed to interrupt the program with ads more than once within 20 minutes).

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The monitoring involves also proposals to improve the situation addressed to the National Commission on Television and Radio, Public Television and Radio Council, administration of “H1” TV Company and to RA National Assembly.

The experts propose to provide 24-hour broadcasting in all the regions of Armenia and not to violate the timeframes intended for advertising. As a result there will be a plenty of airtime for scientific, educational, cultural and other types of programs.

Copies of the report have been sent to the above mentioned bodies, however there is only one response yet received from the National Assembly.

“…As a legislative body not having any lever to check the data submitted, the Commission may still accept them to note and concern to regulate the situation through the future joint efforts within the frames of its authority,” answered Artak Davtyan, head of NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport (it is not the full letter).

According to the last amendments to the Law on Advertising the maximum volume for ads has been reduced to 14 minutes within an hour, and informative materials containing various commercial features will be considered as advertisement.

“Unfortunately, since the previous consideration until now, the Journalists’ Club “Asparez” and the authors of this report have not received any response from these bodies on whether our observations are reviewed or not, whether any changes are expected or not,” says Barseghyan.

“JNews” tried to contact also the “H1” executive director Gagik Buniatyan, but for three days the director’s receptionist answered that Buniatyan was away.

“Asparez” Club plans to continue the monitoring until April 2012.

By the way, Public TV has recently changed the address of its official website. Now it can be accessed at հ1.am instead of the previous Armtv.com.

Source:  JNews.am