Armenia TV has violated the regulations of law concerning time limits for commercials, while advertising “Ala bala nitsa” movie. This aroused the anger of NCTR, as one of Armenian TV channels has noticed it, as a result of its own monitoring, and applied to the commission.
Today an NCTR meeting was held, in order to decide how Armenia TV will be punished. In the meantime, members of the commission found out what justifications the TV channel had. Hermine Hovsepyan, a representative of Armenia TV, was trying to convince members of the commission that they didn’t show a commercial, but an announcement about the movie, however, Grigor Amalyan, the head of NCTR, claimed that there was no information in the given video on when this movie will be shown on the TV channel, therefore it could not be perceived as an announcement, “The commercial of the movie was running on those same days.” H. Hovsepyan was justifying that the video did not include information on when and where the movie will be shown either, “We didn’t mention that it will be shown in a certain cinema from a certain day on etc. We have just shown information on a movie issued inArmenia.” One of members of the commission responded to this, “They do not mention where and at what price one can buy ‘Coca-Cola’ in its commercial either, but it is a commercial.” What the representative of Armenia TV said was not convincing and NCTR decided to impose a fine of a thousandfold of minimum wage (1 million AMD) on the TV channel, informing at the same time that the commission’s decision can be appealed in the court.
In response to a question of Aravot.am what violation was the deed of Armenia TV, Grigor Amalyan, the head of NCTR, said, “The time limit for a commercial was violated, 14 minutes per hour was overrun.” In response to a question what TV channel had complained about Armenia TV, Mr. Amalyan said, “The monitoring results of a TV channel were handed over to us by non-official procedure, as a complaint, although it was noticed by us. I don’t think mentioning the TV channel that has complained to us is the right thing to do at the moment.” However, according to the information got by “Aravot”, Shant TV channel made a complaint.
The representative of Armenia TV did not answer our questions.
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Anush KHECHOYAN
