On December 14, “Asparez” Journalists’ Club of Gyumri informed that it received a reply from the RA National Assembly Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport. The Committee had answered to the suggestion of “Asparez” to introduce a legal ban on commercial advertising on the Public Television of Armenia. As we have reported, on October 31, Levon Barseghian, Board Chairman of “Asparez”, called the RA National Assembly deputies to amend the draft of the 2013 RA Budget and the RA Law “On Television and Radio”. The amendments were supposed to restrict the commercial advertising on the air of the public broadcaster, and instead – increase the budgetary allocations to PTA in the amount of 1 billion AMD (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, October 26 – November 1, 2012).
The letter, signed by Artak Davtian, Chairman of the specialized parliamentary Committee, particularly, noted that “the presented data (by “Asparez”, Ed.Note) are undoubtedly disturbing, however the National Assembly is not competent and cannot take any specific steps, except for taking these data into consideration” (see details at http://www.asparez.am/news-hy/haxordagrutyun-hy/).