Yerevan Press Club monitored the programs on 7 Armenian TV channels to find out the state of information on the political specter and the activities of separate parties before the election and whether the parties have equal opportunities to present their political stance and programs.
This monitoring report covers the period of February 1-28, 2007. The monitoring object were 7 TV channels: the First Channel of the Public Television of Armenia, “ALM”, “Armenia”, “Kentron”, Second Armenian TV Channel, “Shant” (Yerevan), “Yerkir-Media”, namely, their daily air from 18.00 to 24.00. The programs that started, but did not end before 18.00 were not studied. The programs that started but did not end before 24.00 were studied completely. Monitors recorded the references to 34 political parties, most active in Armenia during the recent years, as well as the airtime allocated to them. The party “accounts” also received the portion of references and the airtime given to the representatives of these parties (their statements, speeches, quotations, as well as descriptions of their activities, opinion, and comment about them by other persons). In the cases when representatives of parties appeared as persons in their line of their non-partisan work, profession, etc., and their party affiliation was not stressed, the references and airtime were not recorded. The airtime, allocated to parties for promotional videos/announcements/materials about their activities, was recorded separately. The guests invited to interview, “guest in studio” programs throughout February were also listed separately. Along with the quantitative monitoring, the legislation, the overall media situation, statements of media representatives about their work during the pre-election period were analyzed. The purpose of the study is to define: 1) how comprehensive the information provided to the TV audience about the political spectrum and the activities of parties ahead of elections is; 2) whether equal opportunities are ensured for all parties to present their political views and platforms.
“Kentron” TV channel was most active in covering the pre-election political situation: it allocated most airtime to different parties. It is followed by “Yerkir-Media”, the Second Armenian TV Channel, the PTA First Channel and “Shant”. “Kentron” and “Yerkir-Media“ are also distinguished for their big number of current affairs programs and the diversity of the politicians and other public figures interviewed. The least interest to politics was demonstrated in February by “Armenia” TV channel: since early 2007 it gave up a whole number of current affairs programs, also of “guest in studio” type. Throughout the month the TV channel only made an exception for the RA Minister of Defense and the Chairman of the Council of Republican Party of Armenia Serge Sargsyan.
“ALM” TV channel holds a particular position here, because, on the one hand, it gave the most airtime to politics, but on the other, this was achieved by exceptional attention to the activities and the stance of the TV company owner Tigran Karapetyan, also the head of the Popular Party. The Popular Party received 85.5% of “ALM” political air.
Owing to the attention by this TV channel the Popular Party has a huge advantage over the remaining parties in terms of the airtime allocated to it and its leader on all 7 TV channels (78,263 sec.). At the same time 98% of the aggregate airtime given to the Popular Party is accounted for by “ALM”. Besides, the Popular Party used the air of this channel for a number of announcements (3,924 sec.). “ALM” was the only TV channel in February, whose paid political air was used by a party – the United Labor Party, similarly to the previous months, placed its programs here.
Among the leaders in terms of attention received from the TV channels are “Dashnaktsutiun” party (29,938 sec.), “Prosperous Armenia” (24,559 sec.), Republican Party of Armenia (22,630 sec.). These are the two parties, making up the basis of the ruling coalition as well as the party (“Prosperous Armenia”) that started campaigning earlier than others and most actively, and, judging by the composition of its governing body, also quite close to the authorities. Rather distanced from them – for a party, represented by a parliament faction and membering in the ruling coalition – was the United Labor Party (3,929 sec.). However, this party, to a significant extent, compensated these modest figures by the active use of paid air (being 3.5 times more than the editorial coverage of the party on 7 TV channels).
Judging from what journalists themselves say, the disproportion in the attention of the TV channels to the parties in most cases is due to the following factors: the political weight of the party, the competence of its leaders and their readiness for contacts with media on a broad scope of issues, the influence of parties on certain TV channels and their owners, the availability of financial resources and activeness in conducting pre-election events. The First Channel of the Public TV of Armenia, having a particular mission in accordance with its status, distributed the attention to the parties mostly in close correspondence with their current position in the political arena (in particular, with their representation in the parliament): Republican Party of Armenia (6,038 sec.), “Legal State” party (3,214 sec.), “Dashnaktsutiun” (3,127 sec.), People’s Party of Armenia (1,810 sec.), “National Unity” (1,780 sec.). There is, however, one significant exception to this rule that will be discussed below. 7 channels studied (this fully refers to the PTA First Channel, too) displayed either zero or little interest to these three parties. Their activities were either not covered at all, or were seldom and minimally referred to; their events, press conferences were little reported on, the representatives of these parties were never interviewed.