The Public Channel will be run by private management but will continue being the property of the state. Starting from January 21 the Ararat channel will not be broadcast, instead of that the programs prepared by Shoghakat studio will be published by the H2 channel. This revision of the channels has been done without a noise and any official explanation. Simply the 44 staffers of Ararat TV were told in a day that from now on they are unemployed. The only official statement that was published in the media was the comment of the head of the Public TV board Alexan Harutyunyan, who said that the Public channel will cooperate with the Shoghakat in consideration of the fact that they have had such a successful experience. It is about the satellite broadcast of the Public channel, in which the Shoghakat will have two hours every day to broadcast their programs. The Shoghakat did not take part in the latest competition of TV companies in 2010 and it had not been a broadcasting media company before taking the place of Ararat, thus the Shoghakat is just a studio that is producing TV programs.
Maybe the Public TV wanted to make its spiritual and cultural Ararat channel better and deemed it important to organize a competition between the private companies. Otherwise it is not understandable what was the privilege of the Shoghakat for being the best without a competition. It was done without a legal definition, nether there has been an announcement about such definition. Any public institution (which is kept with the money of taxpayers) must make the legal acts transparent and available to the public, otherwise such institutions stop being public as they are not accountable anymore. As far as we know the Public TV board has not made any announcement about making any of its channels private.
The Shoghakat did not want to present its project packages and direction in the broadcasting competition (which means that they did not want to continue broadcasting). Why does the government give air to that studio in that case? These issues originate a lot of questions about the procedures. According to the director of the Shoghakat Manya Ghazaryan, the Public channel made a decision to provide air to the Shoghakat on temporary basis. However it does not make clear what the terms of this agreement are and when their contract could be terminated.
According to the Shoghakat, the Ararat does not stop being public, but it becomes a company that gives orders for TV programs. The Shoghakat will get state orders, prepare programs with their logo and other trademarks and give these materials to the public TV. It is interesting how the Public channel that is in the role of a company that is to give orders will be managed. If it is a public channel, it must have a public management. Thus, there should be a public council. Currently this public channel, which is also temporarily private company, is managed by the representatives of the Shoghakat (nobody from the former Ararat company can influence on the decision-making now), who have been selected or hired in conditions that have not been made public or written in any documents. It is not also specified anywhere how the society can influence on this new channel (even theoretically).
Anyway, it is clear that by having air broadcast the church benefits because we will finance one more activity of the church.
So if we (the state) are the ones that must keep our church, then it is better to done in the traditional manner, i.e. with the money that is earned from selling candles, organizing baptizing and wedding events, and eventually money fundraising in the boxes installed in churches. As far as I know, we are free to believe in anything we want, and the belief is a volunteer choice, thus it is logical to ask what has changed in our law that makes us to pay a part of our money to the church. It is like we pay for keeping the officials, police and other state institutions. It is not about the staff of the Shoghakat, but the approach of the state to this issue.
What does the state benefit by giving one of its public channels to the church? The Ararat channel refuses its logo, which has become a brand, having its own staff and the opportunity to broadcast about the state religious policy. Anyway, this cloudy and unclear replacements need to be explained.