The Republican Competition: Armenia TV Takes First Place, Yerkrerk Media Second, and Shant Third

The public multiplex conducted a rating vote for the allocation of licenses for slot usage in the republican and capital city broadcasting competitions. Head of the RHC, Tigran Hakobyan, noted that 12 television companies submitted applications for republican broadcasting, of which 3 applied only for republican licenses, while 9 applied for both republican and capital city broadcasting licenses.

He stated that 6 slots were announced for republican broadcasting and 9 slots for capital city broadcasting. However, according to the intergovernmental agreement between Armenia and Russia, one Russian television channel received the opportunity for republican broadcasting without a license, and two Russian channels acquired the chance for capital city broadcasting also without a license, hence the number of slots decreased, with republican slots becoming 5 and capital city slots 7.

Hakobyan mentioned that only 4 applications were submitted for capital city broadcasting; however, on January 8, the 'Skizb Media Center' LLC and then the Public Television retracted their applications, thus excluding themselves from this competition.

For the republican competition, the following scores were received by television companies: 'ArmNews' - 613 points, 'H2' - 626 points, '5th Channel' - 657 points, 'Kentron' TV - 663 points, 'Armenia' TV - 713 points, 'ATV' - 670 points, 'Free News' - 531 points, 'A1+' - 545 points, 'Yerkrerk Media' - 688 points, and 'Shant' - 680 points.

For capital city broadcasting, 4 television companies applied, with the following ranking results: 'Dar 21' - 492 points, 'Mo TV Meldia Holding' LLC - 463 points, 'Arpi Media' LLC - 542 points, and 'Shant Sport' LLC - 216 points.

The head of the RHC stated that television companies which scored lower rating points for republican broadcasting would transition to capital city broadcasting if they also applied for it. He also noted that there were no television companies that collected less than the passing threshold of 1/3 for republican broadcasting. Among the companies that applied solely for capital city broadcasting, the only one that did not gather the required 280 points is 'Shant Sport'.