Shogakat TV Station Closure Bill Passed

The National Assembly of Armenia today approved the bill to close down the Shogakat TV station during its first reading.

The draft amendment to the Law on Audiovisual Media was adopted with 63 votes in favor, 31 against, and 0 abstentions. The bill was authored by Prosperous Armenia Party members Taguhi Ghazaryan and Sisak Gabrielyan.

The proposal aims to reduce the number of public status television channels from three to two. The current public channels include the primary broadcaster, Channel One, the cultural-spiritual Shogakat, and the news channel, Lurer.

The bill intends to decrease the number of public broadcasters as stipulated by existing law to two while also abolishing the requirement for educational and cultural programming content. The justification for the draft clearly indicates a move to abandon the spiritual-cultural Shogakat TV station and remove it from the list of public broadcasters.

A number of journalistic organizations, including the Union of Journalists of Armenia, have protested against this draft and demanded its withdrawal from the National Assembly.