ARMENIAN TV CHANNELS GIVE PREFERENCE TO ARFD
Arminfo
2007-03-07 15:03:00
The Yerevan Press Club’s monitoring of Armenian TV channels before
the parliamentary elections has shown that local TV channels give
preference to ARFD, Prospering Armenia and Republican Party.
The president of the press club Boris Navasardyan says that the
monitoring was carried out Feb 1-28 and covered 7 TV channels: Public
Television, Second Armenian Channel, ALM, Armenia, Yerkir Media,
Kentron and Shant.
Navasardyan says that they registered all mentions of parties in news
and commercials, all TV interviews.
ALM is the most political channel but 85.5% of its air time is given
to the party of its owner Tigran Karapetyan.
The dominance of ARFD, Prospering Armenia and RPA is due to their
political weight. Much depends on the competence of leaders and their
readiness to contact with mass media. Navasardyan does not agree
with the view that other parties are debarred from TV: the three
leaders are closely followed by opposition parties Orinats Yerkir and
Constitutional Right Union. Certain discrimination was showed against
three opposition parties: Republic, New Times and Heritage. Navasardyan
says that its is a coordinated discriminatory policy.
The monitoring will be continued in Mar and as soon as the electoral
campaign starts it will be held on a weekly basis.