Mediamax News Agency, Armenia
Feb 14 2008

Armenian TV gives more coverage to ex-president ahead of polls –
survey

Yerevan, 14 February: The Yerevan Press Club (YPC) today presented
the interim report of the monitoring of election campaign coverage by
broadcast media in Armenia in the period between 31 January and 9
February.

Speaking at a news conference in Yerevan, President of YPC Boris
Navasardyan stated that in this period the volume of editorial
coverage of the election campaign grew. This happened at the expense
of coverage of the Armenian presidential candidates who enjoy the
greatest interest of the media – ex-President of Armenia Levon
Ter-Petrosyan, Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan, leader of
Orinats Yerkir [Law-Governed Country] party Artur Baghdasaryan,
candidate from the People’s Party Tigran Karapetyan, member of
[Armenian Revolutionary Federation -] Dashnaktsutyun party bureau
Vahan Hovhannesyan, leader of the National Unity party Artashes
Geghamyan and candidate from the National Democratic Union Vazgen
Manukyan.

The YPC president noted that "in accordance with the tradition",
Tigran Karapetyan gained basic coverage on the ALM TV channel
belonging to him.

The Armenian ex-president enjoyed during the accounting period most
attention of eight researched broadcast media (37.016 seconds),
followed by Prime Minister of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan (32.786
seconds).

The YPC president stated that Levon Ter-Petrosyan remained the
undoubted leader as to the number of connotation-illustrated mentions
(143 negative and three positive). Also frequent are the
connotation-illustrated mentions of Serzh Sargsyan (83 positive and
24 negative).

Most polarized the coverage of the two candidates was on the Kentron
TV channel. Public TV of Armenia demonstrated balanced coverage
stipulated by law only concerning the distribution of airtime but not
the manner of coverage of the two candidates, Boris Navasardyan
stated.