YEREVAN PRESS CLUB COMMENTS
Support A1+!YPC Comment: It remains at least amazing that “A1+”, founded in 1991 and one of the most popular news TV channels for many years on end, is permanently losing broadcast licensing competitions.
The authorities and the NCTR continue claiming that all the decisions on “A1+” are adopted by the National Commission on Television and Radio independently and in accordance with the law. In the last report of the Monitoring Group of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers (the group of Roland Wegener) on Armenia implementing its commitments to the CE, approved by the Committee of Ministers on January 22, 2005, it was noted that during the meeting with the RA President in Yerevan, the representatives of the group raised the issue of “A1+”, stressing its “symbolic value”. To this the RA President repeated that he cannot interfere into the frequency allotment process, insisting at the same time on the need for media pluralism in the country and asked again for “an international audit of the Armenian broadcast landscape”. The report of the Wegener Group also voiced its unease over the lack of changes in the membership of the broadcast supervisory bodies (NCTR and the Council of the Public TV and Radio Company), the members of which are still appointed by a single authority, the President of the country. We shall not reiterate again that both the refusal to license “A1+” and the non-democratic procedure of the regulatory bodies formation are in the focus of constant attention of journalistic community as well as reputable international organizations: year after year in practically all the reports on the situation of freedom of expression and press in Armenia the need to solve these two issues is emphasized. Meanwhile, on February 14 the National Commission refused “A1+” the possibility to go on air for the tenth time - this time as a radio...
