On May 6, RA President Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree to appoint Gagik Buniatian as a member of the RA National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR) for a six-year term.
As we have reported, the competition to fill in the vacant position at the regulatory body was announced on April 16, due to the expiration of the term of office of the NCTR Chairman Grigor Amalian (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, April 12-18, 2013). There were 9 applicants for the vacant position.
On May 7, NCTR members elected Gagik Buniatian as Chairman.
Since September 2010, Gagik Buniatian was the Executive Director of Public Television of Armenia, before that – from 2002 – he headed “Hay TV”. In the beginning of the 90s, he was the leader of the KVN team of the Yerevan Medical University, which won twice the major league of the KVN (Club of Cheerful and Quick-Witted, Russian TV game show, popular since Soviet times). During these years, Gagik Buniatian also ran “Sharm” LLC.
It is to be noted that on March 1, RA President appointed Ruben Jaghinian a member of the Council of the Public Television and Radio Company (PTRC). Four days later, Ruben Jaghinian got the chairmanship over the regulatory body of the public broadcaster. The PTRC Council new Chairman also played in the KVN team of the Yerevan Medical University and became known after his team, under the leadership of Gagik Buniatian, twice won the abovementioned major league. Afterwards, up until this appointment, Ruben Jaghinian ran “Sharm Holding” LLC (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, March 1-7, 2013).
Thus, the landmark biography of the newly-appointed NCTR and PTRC Council Chairmen are surprisingly cross-cutting: former team-mates and business partners in the leading advertising and entertainment Armenian company are now chairing the main bodies, responsible for broadcast policy of the country.
