The competition declared by the National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR) to license the activities of private multiplexers did not take place for the second consecutive year.

The reason was once again the lack of applications. The next tender, according to head of the NCTR’s Legal and Licensing Department Davit Margaryan, will be announced in May

This means that TV companies that aren’t included in the public multiplexer system will continue analog broadcasting — until a private multiplexer appears on the market. 

In every marz (province) in Armenia, only one TV company has a digital broadcasting license. All are included in the public multiplexer system.

Armenia transitioned to digital broadcasting in October 2016. More than 10 regional TV companies with analog broadcasting left out of the public multiplexer system using different tools are trying to maintain their audience.

What are analog broadcasting companies doing?

Alaverdi’s Ankyun+3 TV company, which lost the majority of its audience after going digital, has now recovered about 80% of its audience. Founder of the TV company Sos Siradeghyan says how they worked with local residents. “With our employees we would go door to door, determine whether they wanted to watch our channel or not. We helped people; we even distributed small, cheap antennas so they could watch our channel easily.”

In the opinion of Gyumri’s GALA TV company Executive Director Karine Harutyunyan, the digitalization process in Armenia acquired a political context. “There was a tendency to silence media outlets that were outside of the ruling authorities’ control. Because of one or two media outlets, many suffered, not getting a broadcasting license.”

GALA also experienced audience loss. “Nevertheless, the segment of the population that for years has preferred GALA as an objective source of information today, too, continues to remain our TV viewer.”

Harutyunyan says that Gyumri residents continue to watch GALA through local cable television. In addition, the TV station’s website is actively working.

Chief editor of Lori TV, broadcast in Vanadzor, Narine Avetisyan confesses that with analog broadcasting they’ve become less competitive and lose their audience day by day. “We’re trying to work more actively on our website and keep our audience through the internet.”

What will happen after

Avetisyan says they will continue to broadcast analog and fight to change the conditions of the multiplexer tender. “A protest demonstration is the only way left to fight. In 2016, we even sent an open letter to the country’s president, the parliamentary speaker, and the prime minister, but none of them responded,” she says.

The Lori TV editor has no hope that a private multiplexer will appear under the current conditions. Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression (CPFE) President Ashot Meliqyan, who supports the remaining regional TV companies that are at the mercy of analog broadcasting, agrees with her.

“If the competition is not happening for the second time, it means that the conditions proposed by the law first of all are not attractive in business terms and promise no prospects. Here of course the law must be changed. That the private multiplexer must include the entire territory of the country is a vulnerable approach because a great deal of investment is needed for that.”

In Meliqyan’s words, a few TV companies in the regions were ready to unite and create a private multiplexer if the conditions change, but the regulating bodies are leaving the law as it stands.

“I think that declaring the tender failed for the second time is a serious impetus for the ruling authorities, the regulating body, as well as media organizations with joint efforts to make changes in the law, and this issue to be settled.”

CPFE, the Yerevan Press Club, and the Media Initiatives Center [also responsible for this site] jointly developed and sent to parliament a package of bills proposing to secure the entry of private multiplexers to the market using more liberal approaches. But the bills submitted to the National Assembly have not been circulated.

Media organizations are asking parliament to circulate their proposed bills and to the NCTR — to take concrete steps toward changing broadcasting legislation.

Anahid Danielyan