Armen Arzumanyan, a former press secretary of the president, has resumed his creative work. Journalists generally haven’t heard at least serious complaints about his government service, which I, as a person who held that office 20 years ago, am very happy to assert, However, I would like to talk about what Armen said yesterday about his future plans, television. “The development of modern technology and the spread of the all-embracing internet have issued a new challenge to television. It is about time that television takes an unavoidable step. A big step.”
Really, many people I know state with this or that level of honesty: “I don’t watch television.” A part really watches; it is just ashamed to admit that it watches only TV series and humor. However, what I understand by television is neither TV series nor humor; it is the product that forms the socio-political agenda. And today one can surely say that television doesn’t do that; it is done by websites and social networks. The latter give the primary impetus to the idea and news, and television either gives the second impetus or doesn’t give it at all. Certainly, the partial reason is that TV companies are controlled to a certain extent, and the internet is not. However, firstly, the control is not so barbaric, as it was, say, 10 years ago. Secondly, one of the problems is television’s conservative means of expression. Since I work in both fields, I can assert that as a TV journalist, I am more “sluggish,” than as an author and an owner of a website. Journalists’ latest meeting with the president is testimony to that. It shouldn’t be so, and here I am not talking about technological, but psychological, professional rearmament of television. A big step is really needed.
…Grigor Amalyan, the chairman of the National Commission on TV and Radio (NCTR) whose primary mission had been not to allow A1+ anywhere near the air, said goodbye to his office recently; if his name is written in the history books sometime, it will only be done in that context. That event would have been of great significance some 5-7 years ago, it would have become a subject of discussion. The mass media would have started to guess who would replace him. Today it is absolutely unimportant, because terms like “channel of communication” and “air” have changed their former meaning, and in 2 years’ time, we will understand an absolutely different thing by that. Today websites, including A1+ and Aravot, broadcast online without certificates and channels of communication, and I don’t think that whatever its composition the next government will put limits on this. And I must admit that under the influence of those factors my malice toward Amalyan has reduced.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
