Media Moguls: On the Trail of Armenian TV Owners; Foreign and Domestic
[ 2010/05/17 | 15:18 ]
Feature Stories media
Edik Baghdasaryan
Owing to its large audience and influence on the viewer,TV has become
an important weapon in the strugle being waged foreconomic and
politcal power. The ruling elites have realized that the impact of the
print media in the country has waned and that it is TV broadcatsers
who actually help shape public opiniomn.
After the 1998 elections, the regime started to take the broadcast
media `under its wing’. During the ensuing years the regime has
succeeded, by using all the leverage at its disposal, to establish
widespread supervision of TV broadcasters, by prior `selection’ of
station owners. To speak about the independence of TV broadcasting in
Armenia today would be fallacious.
Practically all TV stations are subject to state monitoring. This
issue has bee raised for many years now, and not just in Armenia.
Various international organizations have also reached the same
conclusion. I say `practically’ all since there are at least two TV
stations that do not submit to the `Center’. I will come to them
later.
The news and political programming of TV stations is monitored and
supervise from the one center; the presidential office. This
dependency on the center becomes especially evident during election
campaigns as well as during times of political tensions.
What would happen if these stations did not submit or follow the
dictates from the center. To give a specific answer we must clarify
how the TV stations operating today came to be and how they received
public broadcasting rights. Just as important, we must understand who
the real owners of these stations are.
According to information from the Ministry of Justice, some of
Armenia’s TV stations are financed by foreign capital sources.
Some of the information regarding these companies is not available
publicly since they are closed joint corporations. We sent a letter of
inquiry to Grigor Amalya, President of the National Commission on
Television and Radio (NCTR) for some information on these companies.
We wanted to know, in particular, if the NCTR knew anything about the
foreign capital connection. We pointed out the fact that one of the
founders of one of the TV stations was a company registered in the
British Virgin Islands, considered an off-shore zone. Has the NCTR
ever taken the time to find out just who is behind this off-shore
corporation?
We received a reply from Jirayr Dadasyan, NCTR Deputy Chaiorman.
`In answer to your letter, let me state that the NCTR, within the
limits of its jurisdiction, checks the existence of prohibitions
regarding the founders of TV stations as envisaged by the RA Law on TV
and Radio, Article 17. The Committee inspects the personal operations
of the TV stations, in which are included the charter documents of the
stations.’
These charter documents include information on the individual founders
and who owes what percentage of shares. Given this information, the
NCTR can easily determine the percentage of foreign capital involved .
As to the question of the shareholders of the foreign corporation,
`Article 17 of the above-mentioned law sets no restriction regarding
foreign holdings or the country of registration. Thus, the NCTR has no
jurisdiction to clarify such issues.’ Our research has shown that the
NCTR has not clarified the share of foreign capital participation and
the identity of the founders when it comes to certain TV stations.
`Armenia TV’
The owner of this TV station is `Armenia TV’, a closed stock company.
By law, the shareholders of closed stock companies remain undisclosed
if that is the wish of the shareholders. Bu Article 17 of the RA Law
on TV and Radio contains a point about founders, saying that at te
time of the founding of TV station, or afterwards, the extent of
foreign capital participation must not be equal to or exceed the
operating capital employed by the broadcasting company This means
that the NCTR is obliges to know who the shareholder are. It is the
NCTR that must first get to the bottom of who the shareholders are and
the foreign capital involved. It is hard to say if this point of the
law has been violated or not, since such information has not yet been
made public. Then again, there are many instances of which we know of
when organizations hide such information from the public. There is
foreign capital involved in the TV stations owned by Armenia Media
Holding and there are suspicions that in all three companies the
percentage of foreign capital exceeds half.
Armenia TV was founded in 1999 by the Sargsyan family. The well known
American benefactor Gerald Cafesjian also became a shareholder in
2001. Today the two shareholders are the Cafesjian Family’ foundation
and the Sargsyan family. On September 4, 2004, ceremonies marking the
launch of CS Media, or otherwise known as Armenia Media Holding were
held. This is a giant holding company which owns `Armenia’, ArmNews’
and television stations, `FM 10³ radio and a number of other
companies. Cafesjian got a hold of the Cascade property in Yerevan at
a pretty good price with some backing by former RA President Robert
Kocharyan. Later on, he also picked up `HayFilm’ cinemas studio, also
at a good price. After Kocharyan left office, the position of Bagrat
Sargsyan started to weakened, even though he really had no long-term
plans of staying in the TV business. Sargsayn was actually thinking of
moving to the United States, the country of his patron, Cafesjian.
Information as to the share percentages held by Cafesjian and Sargsyan
isn’t public. Rumor have been recently circulating that the shares of
Armenia TV have been sold off. We haven’t been able to verify this.
According to the law, information as to shareholder changes is
maintained and controlled by Armenia’s Central Depository and one can
only be granted information from that body if the shareholders
themselves agree. By law, it is the NCTR that should obtain such
information, especially since there is foreign capital involved.
`ArmNews’ TV Editorial Board
The company’s founder is `Cinemax’ Ltd. `Cinemax’, in turn, was
founded by `Hermes’ CJSC and `ArmNews’ CJSC. The owners and cofounders
of `Hermes’ are MP Harutyun Pambukyan (52.5%) and | `Investment
Worldwide Grew Route Town (47.5%), registered in the British Virgin
Islands. Companies register off-shore in an attempt to evade taxes and
the identity of shareholders. Yeras ago, Pambukyan’s `Midland
Resources Holding’ registerd in the British island of Guernsey,
transacted one of the largest energy deals ever in Armenia.
The stock owners of Arm News aren’t known. The founding capital of
ArmNews is 140,100,000 AMD and there are 14,100 stock issues. In other
words each share is worth 10,000 AMD. According to our information,
tere is foreign capital involved here as well, and it is most likely
that one of the shareholders is Gerard Cafesjian. It is not known the
extent to which Hermes and Cinemax have a stake in ArmNews.
This is the third of the above-mentioned companies having foreign
capital. Moreover, one of the shareholder companies is registered
off-shore. And since there are certain prohibitions when it comes to
the founders, then the NCTR is required by law to know who these
off-shore foreign shareholders are. Another interesting side bar to
this story is that ArmNews was granted a broadcast frequency
illegally, since at the time of the tender there was no such mass
media outlet registered. The bid was placed by `Cinemax’, using the
technical and photo resources of `ArmNews’
`TV 5³
TV 5 is a station that is owned by `TV 5³ CJSC. It remains the
property of Cafesjian and the Sargsyan family. There is foreign
capital here as well but the amount ids unknown
`E.V.’ TV or the illegal broadcast
The founder id `E.V.’. The station rebroadcasts CNN programming. The
founding capita is 42 million AMD. Registered in 1992.e were two
original owners:
1) Luisa Khachatryan (50% ` 21 million AMD)
2) Vanderblit Prop. Inc, USA, East Wisconsin 22550 (50% ` 21 million AMD)
It turns out that half of this corporation is foreign owned. In 2007,
Artyom Sargsyan, Bagrat Sargsyan’s father, obtained the shares of
Luisa Khachatryan. Let us again cite that point of the RA Law on TV
and Radio which says that at te time of the founding of TV station,
or afterwards, the extent of foreign capital participation must not be
equal to or exceed the operating capital employed by the broadcasting
company.
In the case of EV TV this point has been violated from the start and
the NCTR has apparently nor noticed this infraction of the law.
Otherwise, it should have never allowed the company to participate in
the tender.