On September 5 the National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR) granted licenses to broadcast, and to produce and broadcast to another 13 TV and radio companies of Armenia (according to the RA Law “On Television and Radio” the licenses are granted within 10 days after an appropriate decision is made and the procedural requirements are fulfilled). Thus, the re-licensing process of the private broadcasters that started on August 2 was completed.
As Yerevan Press Club was told by the Chairman of the NCTR Grigor Amalian, applications for the licenses were filed by 40 TV and radio companies (out of 42 former license-holders), with the exception of “Lori-Vanadzor” radio and Spitak TV. 38 of them were re-licensed, and two were denied a license. These are close joint-stock companies AATV and the Republican Center of Cable Television Systems. According to the Chairman of NCTR, the reason for denying the license is the fact that originally these enterprises, rebroadcasting different TV companies, had been licensed to only build and maintain the cable broadcasting systems, but not to broadcast and produce. Nevertheless, AATV persists in rebroadcasting, and this induced Mr. Amalian to appeal to the appropriate bodies to stop the illegitimate broadcasting.
Along with this, on September 4 the order of licensing the production of TV and radio programs was published. According to the RA Law “On Television and Radio”, the application for this license should be submitted to the National Commission within 30 days since the publication date. It should be noted that the Law stipulates granting of three types of licenses: production (with no expiration); broadcasting; production and broadcasting.
