Giorgi Mgeladze, Studio Monitor
The group of studio Monitor has been monitoring the two main players on the media ad market of Rustavi 2 and Imedi for several months. There have been 50 records submitted altogether – informative programs, movies and other programs. Ultimately, several tens of facts of violations of the Law on Broadcasting have been observed.
The Income and Ad Share
The joint income and corresponding number of TV companies has increased since the year 2005, and exceeded 100 million GEL in 2008. In light of the August war and economic crisis, incomes in 2009 decreased by 11 million.
There is no official data on the income generated by advertisements. According to 2008 research by Transparency International Georgia, 58 million from the joint income of TV companies came from advertisements in 2008 and 35-38 million in 2009.
Organization TV MR GE monitored 8 Georgian channels last year. According to their data, in 2009 most commercial ads were broadcast by Imedi – 125 minutes a day, 111 minutes by Rustavi 2, 80 by Music Box, 76 by Caucasia, 72 by Maestro, 72 by Pirveli Stereo, 52 by Pirveli Arxi, and 32 by Mze.
The modality for advertisement broadcasting is drawn out in the chapter 8 of the Law on Broadcasting. This chapter also includes a list of programs during which it is prohibited to broadcast advertisements.
For instance, news broadcasting cannot be stopped by an advertisement. However, this law is often violated.
On February 10th of 2010, the new program Qronika on TV Imedi started at 11 pm and lasted for 23 minutes. However, the program was stopped by two and a half minutes of advertisements. The same violated occurred on January 5th in 11 pm on Kronika. The program lasted for 19 minutes and three and a half minute of advertisements constituted a violation. The same kind of violation was observed on January 23rd during 18-hour Kurieri, 26-minute program was stopped by a 4-minute advertisement bloc despite the prohibition.
The Law on Broadcasting allows the stopping of news program for advertisements only if the news program lasts longer than 30 minutes. In this case it is possible to stop the program no more than once in 15 minutes, and the length of advertisements must not exceed 2 minutes. Our records demonstrate that 15-minute interval and 120 second limit is often violated. For instance, on January 21st, the interval between the ads during the 9 pm Kurieri lasted for 9 minutes, and on January 25th it lasted for 5 minutes during the 11 pm Kronika. The limit of advertisement length is often violated by P.S., Business Kurieri, Kurieri and Kronika.
The law gets stricter when determining the place and length of advertisements in children’s programs. These kinds of programs can be stopped only once in 15 minutes for a maximum of 45 seconds.
The program Sabavshvo Ambebi is broadcast on Rustavi 2 every week. The established limit is violated here as well. On the February 14th program, the advertisement length exceeded the limit of 45 second by 3 times. The interval between the advertisements was just 7 minutes.
One more restriction laid out in the Law on Broadcasting concerns the movies. According to the law, if the movie is longer than 45 minutes, it can be stopped only once in 45 minutes and three times maximum. The movie Manana was shown on August 29th by Imedi, and was stopped 5 times for advertisements. The interval between the ads amounted to 10 minutes instead of 45. In sum, the movie, the length of which is only an hour and 10 minutes, had about 40 minutes of ads in it.
The lawyer for the National Commission of Communications, Kakhi Kurashvili, confirmed that the corresponding examples are violations. However, Kurashvili states that since the law has only been in effect since January 2005, these types of violations have not been observed by the Commission. “We have not fined any TV companies for violating chapter 8 of the Law on Broadcasting. No notification on the law violations by the corresponding TV Companies has been presented to the Legal Department,” states Kurashvili.
However, the abovementioned modalities are violated every day. According to the law, the Commission itself is obligated to discover and react based on the violations and it is not necessary to address it with a complaint.
Financed News Programs
Except for ascertaining the limit of advertisement, the law prohibits the sponsoring of news programs, political talk shows and the reportages on social topics. This request is also violated, for example the Business Kurieri was first sponsored by Socar Georgia, then by Georgian Bank, and now by Aversi.
The law is violated in the program P.S. as well; where the company Aversi has been a sponsor of social reportages for a long time, even though the law clearly states that it is prohibited to sponsor the reportages on social issues.
“It is categorically inadmissible to sponsor news programs. The only value of news programs is informing the public. In the case of sponsoring, the news program may be influenced by the sponsor and the viewer provided with distorted information,” – stated media expert Nino Danelia.
Nichieri, Meri and 2 Vano
The Law on Broadcasting prohibits the administrative bodies, state figures, government officials and political party the sponsoring of TV programs. Despite the prohibition, the project Nichieri of Rustavi 2 which ran for 3 months was supported by Tbilisi City Hall. Tbilisi mayor was even proud of it: “We will always support such programs,” – stated Gigi Ugulava to P.S.
We asked Tbilisi mayor in written form how much Nichieri cost for the budget 7 months ago. We still have not received the answer. According to the prices received from Rustavi 2, the sponsoring of Nichieri costs 60,000-150,000 dollars.
One more administrative body violating the law is the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “Vano Department” is a sponsor of the “Vano show.” According to the agreement provided by the Ministry, 116 000 GEL has been paid in the advertisement of defense police.
“Tbilisi mayor and defense police are administrative bodies. Hence the sponsoring and supporting of certain programs is a law violation,” states Irakli Tsnobiladze, a lawyer.
We showed the video recording of violations to a lawyer for the Regulating Commission. He promised that he will deal with it.
“The state departments do not have right to spend the budget on the advertising of their activity. The money paid in advertisements is undetermined spending and is sanctioned by the law. According to the Criminal Code, it is an official crime,” states lawyer Lia Mukhashavria.
“Off to Chachava!”
The law established certain restrictions for TV journalists also. For instance, the hosts of news programs, social-political and electoral programs or journalists are prohibited to participate in commercial advertisements. Despite this prohibition, one of the hosts of Rustavi 2 was inviting the viewers to Chachava clinic in an advertisement.
The head of Journalist Ethics Council Eter Turadze finds it inadmissible for a journalist to participate in commercial advertisement: “I know one case when a very popular host of one of the French channels participated in a commercial advertisement. She was dismissed from the job. This is in a direct connection to the fact journalist should not be the face of any company.”
For Sale!
The abovementioned modalities of the Law on Broadcasting are often violated by Imedi and Rustavi 2, but there are violations unknown to the viewers. For instance, the ordered reportages which have commercial nature but are broadcast in informative programs and not in commercial blocs.
The magazine Liberali dedicated an article to the ordered reportages entitled “For Sale.”
The “Liberal” found out that the telecast about the quality of sausages produced in Georgia, which aimed to assist population to choose safe products, was ordered by the meat company “Mitana”.
We talked with the representatives of the Rustavi 2 and Imedi-TV as order-makers and they confirmed that they release ordered telecasts in news programs. The representative of the Imedi-TV told us that the telecast in their news program costs 1 500 USD. The Rustavi 2 sent us a price-list which provides information about the prices of different telecasts.
Morning Program “Good Morning, Georgia”
1. telecast with synchrony – 700 USD
2. telecast – 800 USD
3. Guest in the studio – 800 USD
4. live interviews (one day) – 900 USD
5. discussion of the website during the internet discussion – 500 USD
6. Press discussion in Kiria’s telecast – 500 USD
TV-Program – “Business Kurieri”
1. telecast and guest in the studio – 1000 USD
2. product advertisement – 1000 USD
3. 2-minute-long telecast – 800 USD
4. 1-minute-long telecast – 500 USD
Weekly Program “P.S.”
1. telecast (length depends on the topic) – 3 000 USD
Lawyer of the National Communication Commission Kakhi Kurashvili also agreed that the advertisement telecast should have corresponding indication.
Inactive Commission
The National Communication Commission is authorized to react on the above-listed violations and impose corresponding sanctions on the violators; however, the Commission has not punished any TV company yet. Nevertheless, the Commission has solid human and financial resources for it. The annual budget of the Commission is 4, 700 million GEL. 3 million GEL of it is spent on the salaries and bonuses of the employees. The Commission has monitoring and broadcasting regulation departments which are assigned to monitor the transmission of the TV companies. Despite their resources, the Commission has never observed the violations which we have detected.
The inactivity of the Commission might be the result of its being a main-player in the advertisement market.
Arveladze, Chikovani, Damenia
These three people control the advertisement market. There are two main players on the TV-advertisement – “Media House and “Touch Media”. Those companies control more than 70 % of the market.
The Media House serves the following companies: “Rustavi 2”, “Public Broadcasting,” “1st Stereo”, “Music Box,” TV-Company “Sakartvelo”. “Touch Media” works for the TV-Company “Imedi” only.
According to the TV-M-R Georgia, in 2009, Georgian TV companies transmitted 13 million seconds of advertisements in total. 56% of it belonged to the TV-Companies which are clients of the Media House; 20 % belongs to the Imedi-TV which is client of the Touch Media; the rest 24% belongs to the TV-Companies Maestro and Kavkasia.
The Founders of the Media House and Touch Media
The founder of the Touch Media is Georgian Media Production Group which owns the TV-Company Imedi. The director of the company is Giorgi Arveladze. According to the foundation documents, Giorgi Arveladze is authorized to make decisions both in the Touch Media and Imedi-TV. Thus, the advertisement is searched and then released by one person.
The same situation was in the Media House – Irakli Chikovani owned shares both in the Media House and Rustavi 2. Moreover, before August 18, 2010, Chikovani occupied the position of the National Communication Commission and had shares in the Media House. In this case, the searcher, releaser and controller of the advertisement were one person – Irakli Chikovani.
Today, Kakhaber Damenia is the owner of the 100% in the Media House. In 2005-2008 Kakha Damenia was deputy minister of economic development of Georgia. His brother Lasha Damenia is a Member of Parliament and member of the faction United National Movement in the parliament.
Controlled Media-Market
Part of the people working on the media-market think that the government controls the advertisement market in Georgia and it does not work in accordance to the market principles.
“In July of 2008, one day many businessmen were charged and suggested – not to order advertisement in Kavkasia if they did not want to face some serious problems. Ten companies stopped agreements with us within a week; among them was Beeline which ceased its one-year agreement with us which was signed a week before,” recalled director of the TV-Company “Kavkasia” Nino Jangirashvili.
The founder of the Maestro-TV told the same stories.
“We had agreed with the company directors to release the advertisement but suddenly there was a phone called and they said “well, we have changed our mind…” “Why?” there are plenty of reasons – he got sick – was the suggested excuse. The owners of the TV companies own the advertisement companies too and their ads are released only in the government-controlled TV-companies,” said Mamuka Ghlonti.
“In fact, nobody orders ads in the “Liberal”. We have to more editions “Tskheli Shokoladi” (Hot Chocolate) and “Business”. We offered businessmen ads in the Liberal for a low price if they ordered ads in the Tskheli Chokoladi and Business; but they did not accept. Then we offered them free ads in the Liberal – we wanted to find out whether they declined our offer because of price or there was some other reason – and they did not accept it either. So, the Liberal is an unacceptable edition,” said the publisher of the Liberal Shorena Shaverdashvili.
Mamuka Ghlonti also took measures not to make the advertisement price inconvenient for clients and offered them to release their ads in their company for symbolic price – 1 GEL. At that time, “Cell # 5” was released on Maestro-TV.
“Maestro” was in first place; we all know that entire Tbilisi population did not sleep at night to watch Cell # 5. And in such a situation we offered businessmen advertisement for 1 GEL! If you are not afraid of anybody, and if a businessman is a free person in the democratic state, could you imagine how many ads were to be ordered in our company? Nevertheless, nobody got in touch with us,” said Ghlonti.
There are no direct allegations to prove that the government blocks advertisements in the critical media sources. However, there are indirect allegations. For example, representatives of the Maestro –TV and Kavkasia said they have never received ads from the governmental institutions which are often released by the pro-governmental TV-Channels.
The experts also speak about the governmental control on the advertisement market.
“TV-Company “Kavkasia” broadcasts in Tbilisi but the City Hall has never ordered any advertisement to them,” said media-expert Nino Danelia.
“I have unofficial information that there is systemic approach which prohibits advertisements in media-organizations like Maestro-TV, Kavkasia and magazine “Liberal”, said media-expert Ia Antadze.
Media analyst Mathias Hutter speaks about the governmental control on the advertisement market as well; he has been studying Georgian media situation for the organization Transparency International – Georgia for two years already. “In Georgia, the advertisement market is controlled by a very narrow sector and those people and companies might have close links to the influential people and politicians. It is difficult to assume whether it is true or not but people often speak about links between the company owners and politicians.”
P.S. In the hope of the parliament only…
TV companies Rustavi 2 and Imedi-TV continue to breach the law; they break time limits, intervals between ads, the rules estimated by the law in regard with sponsorship and at the expense of all these violations they own important share of the advertisement market. Experts think inactivity by the National Communication Regulation Commission supports their impudent action. Only the Parliament of Georgia is entitled to make the Commission accountable. As a rule, TV companies are accountable to the Communication Commission; the latter is accountable to the Parliament of Georgia and the latter is accountable to the Georgian population. However, the Commission blenches at the violations of the TV companies as well as the parliament does about the inactivity of the Commission. As a result, the society is victim of all these violations.
Journalistic investigation was prepared with the financial support of the Foundation “Open Society – Georgia,” EU and Eurasian Partnership Foundation
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