After the New Year holidays definitely one of the most interesting things for people was what was written regarding TV programs in print media. You can’t see anything written about Russian “1” and “Rossia” channels in newspapers. These two TV channels are really famous among people. In some CIS countries these two channels are not broadcasted any more (for instance in Georgia). The issue of broadcasting these foreign channels again is a political issue (especially broadcasting national TV channels). This issue is regulated by law in Armenia too. Article 10 of “The law on Radio and TV activities” says: “Foreign TV channels can fully be broadcasted in Armenia only on the base of mutual agreement by using not more than 1/3 of the frequency”. Now there are only three foreign TV channels in Armenia that are broadcasted fully (these two Russian channels and CNN). There is another TV channel (MIR), which is broadcasted in the CIS countries, but this is not so famous among people. The problem of broadcasting these channels again is not only political, but also economical. The re-broadcasting company uses the time periods of advertisements to put their own advertisements. Accordingly the business of re-broadcasting TV channels is very profitable. The companies that re-broadcast programs don’t do anything but make good money. These broadcasting activities of foreign TV channels in Armenia have always been connected with some “shady” stories. Several years ago some forces made Russian “Totus” company leave the Armenian field of this business with the purpose to reach final monopoly in this field. After “Totus” left this field Russian “RTR” TV company didn’t give a right to any company to replace their advertisements with local ones.
During several years the local companies and re-broadcasting companies had conflicts. These re-broadcasting companies didn’t do anything but they made more money from advertisements than the local companies. According to specialists of this field the turnover in the market of advertisements is rather big compared to the capacity of our economy. According to different specialists of this field the field of Armenian advertisements covers about 8-12 million dollars. The 1/3 part of this turnover belongs to re-broadcasting companies. There has never been transparent market competition in this field. So we can’t say that the conflict between the local companies and the re-broadcasting companies is just the economical competition. The situation in this market seems to be of monopolistic character as in some other business fields too. For instance only “Paradise” TV company had a right to re-broadcast the programs of “ORT” TV company in Armenia during several years.
According to the official information of the RA ministry of communications, the current changes in this field don’t depend on internal developments. The Russian companies appealed to the authorized bodies at the end of the last year and informed about the proposed changes themselves. They write in their letter that now they don’t give a right to any CIS country to broadcast the programs of “Rossia” TV company, but only the programs of “Rossia-Planeta” TV company. And it is already more than one week that we have the satellite broadcast of “Planeta” TV channel. A couple of days the broadcast of the first channel (1) was the same. Now the Armenian side is negotiating with the first channel (ORT) to recover the broadcast of this channel. So this channel is still broadcasted with the same time-table of the last year.
The RA law says: “The companies that have licenses for re-broadcasting activities are to inform the National Commission about that in advance”. According to the RA ministry of communications the holder of the license for broadcasting the programs of the first channel is “TV 1” company. As for “Rossia” TV channel, their re-broadcasting company in Armenia is “Armenian TV network” CJSC. At the same time the right for managing the time table and other activities regarding advertisements is given to “H 2” TV channel.
It is always difficult to understand the developments in the field of broadcasting foreign TV programs and there is always chaos in this field. The Russian “NTV” company was closed after the well-known reportage regarding Kocharyan and champaign. Then they announced that they were not going to organize any competitions for the right to broadcast these programs, because this channel would be used to rebroadcast the Russian “Culture” TV channel. At first the broadcasting frequency of this channel was not good for making advertisements, and later they changed it. This change of broadcast frequency according to specialists was done only for the purpose to make advertisements. The re-broadcasting companies understand that there will be fewer people watching the programs of “ORT”-“MIR” and “RTR”-“Planeta” channels because usually new films are not shown via satellite broadcast. This means that these broadcasts are going to be less compatible in the advertisement market of Armenia. Now the re-broadcasting companies are taking steps to recover their right to broadcast the programs as they used to do. They do this not to lose their profits. Accordingly we hope that they will be able to do that.