YPC REPORT ON MONITORING TV CHANNELS OF ARMENIA

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[05:43 pm] 07 March, 2007

more images This monitoring report covers the period of February 1-28,
2007. The monitoring object were 7 TV channels: the First Channel
of the Public Television of Armenia, "ALM", "Armenia", "Kentron",
Second Armenian TV Channel, "Shant" (Yerevan), "Yerkir-Media", namely,
their daily air from 18.00 to 24.00. The programs that started, but
did not end before 18.00 were not studied. The programs that started
but did not end before 24.00 were studied completely.

Monitors recorded the references to 34 political parties, most active
in Armenia during the recent years, as well as the airtime allocated
to them.

The party "accounts" also received the portion of references and
the airtime given to the representatives of these parties (their
statements, speeches, quotations, as well as descriptions of their
activities, opinion, and comment about them by other persons). In
the cases when representatives of parties appeared as persons in
their line of their non-partisan work, profession, etc., and their
party affiliation was not stressed, the references and airtime were
not recorded.

The airtime, allocated to parties for promotional
videos/announcements/materials about their activities, was recorded
separately.

The guests invited to interview, "guest in studio" programs throughout
February were also listed separately.

Along with the quantitative monitoring, the legislation, the overall
media situation, statements of media representatives about their work
during the pre-election period were analyzed.

The purpose of the study is to define: 1) how comprehensive the
information provided to the TV audience about the political spectrum
and the activities of parties ahead of elections is; 2) whether equal
opportunities are ensured for all parties to present their political
views and platforms.

"Kentron" TV channel was most active in covering the pre-election
political situation: it allocated most airtime to different parties. It
is followed by "Yerkir-Media", the Second Armenian TV Channel, the
PTA First Channel and "Shant". "Kentron" and "Yerkir-Media" are also
distinguished for their big number of current affairs programs and the
diversity of the politicians and other public figures interviewed. The
least interest to politics was demonstrated in February by "Armenia" TV
channel: since early 2007 it gave up a whole number of current affairs
programs, also of "guest in studio" type. Throughout the month the TV
channel only made an exception for the RA Minister of Defense and the
Chairman of the Council of Republican Party of Armenia Serge Sargsian.

"ALM" TV channel holds a particular position here, because, on the
one hand, it gave the most airtime to politics, but on the other,
this was achieved by exceptional attention to the activities and the
stance of the TV company owner Tigran Karapetian, also the head of the
Popular Party. The Popular Party received 85.5% of "ALM" political air.

Owing to the attention by this TV channel the Popular Party has a
huge advantage over the remaining parties in terms of the airtime
allocated to it and its leader on all 7 TV channels (78,263 sec.). At
the same time 98% of the aggregate airtime given to the Popular Party
is accounted for by "ALM". Besides, the Popular Party used the air
of this channel for a number of announcements (3,924 sec.). "ALM" was
the only TV channel in February, whose paid political air was used by
a party – the United Labor Party, similarly to the previous months,
placed its programs here.

Among the leaders in terms of attention received from the TV channels
are "Dashnaktsutiun" party (29,938 sec.), "Prosperous Armenia"
(24,559 sec.), Republican Party of Armenia (22,630 sec.). These are
the two parties, making up the basis of the ruling coalition as well
as the party ("Prosperous Armenia") that started campaigning earlier
than others and most actively, and, judging by the composition of its
governing body, also quite close to the authorities. Rather distanced
from them – for a party, represented by a parliament faction and
membering in the ruling coalition – was the United Labor Party (3,929
sec.). However, this party, to a significant extent, compensated
these modest figures by the active use of paid air (being 3.5 times
more than the editorial coverage of the party on 7 TV channels).

Judging from what journalists themselves say, the disproportion in
the attention of the TV channels to the parties in most cases is
due to the following factors: the political weight of the party,
the competence of its leaders and their readiness for contacts with
media on a broad scope of issues, the influence of parties on certain
TV channels and their owners, the availability of financial resources
and activeness in conducting pre-election events.

The First Channel of the Public TV of Armenia, having a particular
mission in accordance with its status, distributed the attention to the
parties mostly in close correspondence with their current position in
the political arena (in particular, with their representation in the
parliament): Republican Party of Armenia (6,038 sec.), "Orinats Yerkir"
party (3,214 sec.), "Dashnaktsutiun" (3,127 sec.), People’s Party of
Armenia (1,810 sec.), "National Unity" (1,780 sec.). There is, however,
one significant exception to this rule that will be discussed below.

7 channels studied (this fully refers to the PTA First Channel, too)
displayed either zero or little interest to these three parties. Their
activities were either not covered at all, or were seldom and minimally
referred to; their events, press conferences were little reported on,
the representatives of these parties were never interviewed.