ARMENIAN PUBLIC TV CRITICIZED FOR LOW QUALITY AND BIASED PROGRAMMING

Mediamax
Nov 10 2008
Armenia

Yerevan, 10 November: Discussions of the proposed amendments to the
Law on Television and Radio continued in the Armenian parliament today.

Ara Nranyan of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun
[ARFD] faction in parliament criticized the activity of the Armenian
Public TV. He said that the Public TV does not correspond to its real
purpose and is no different than other TV channels. He said that the
Public TV air time is completely filled with soap operas and programmes
with "inadequate content and quality". Nranyan criticized the content
of the Public TV’s information programmes as well. He called the
state budget money given to the Public TV "pointlessly wasted".

Stepan Safaryan, the secretary of the opposition Heritage party
faction, in his turn, said that in 2006-07, the Public TV "served the
interests of one person, former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan
and did not ensure pluralism of opinions in media".

He also expressed discontented with the content of the programmes and
movies broadcasted by the Public TV, saying that there is a necessity
to hand over the task of monitoring the Public TV to independent
expert organizations, which will help organize more effectively the
further activity of the TV channel.

The chairman of the Public TV board, Aleksan Harutyunyan, who was in
attendance, did not react to the criticism. The voting on proposed
amendments to the Law on Television and Radio will be conducted on
11 November.