Ambiguous Fate of TV Program “7 Days”

Contracts with journalists were ceased earlier and the reason was outstanding debts.

Eka Kevanishvili, Tbilisi

“Every Sunday at 9:00 PM independent studio “Akhali Droeba” on behalf of Georgian Public Broadcasting represents weekly TV program “7 Days”- the announcement can be stated in the past now because Company GTV, under umbrella of the TBC TV, which is  the sponsor of the journalists’ team that produced “7 Days. It appears that the contact has been cancelled or ceased to operate, and this was an unexpected event. The production team was expecting grants in nearest future, which would have allowed the TV program to have worked independently. The expected funding would have covered at least at 90% of cost as of September. However, the overall situation was unacceptable for the Georgian government, and this may have been a contributing factor for production to suddenly stop.

Dachi Grdzelishvili, journalist for the “Akhali Doeba”, states that nobody has ever complained to him or his friends over the quality of the program. The staff was never repressed or censured in any way. However, the officials from the government had made some remarks about various comments they intended to make in their program. But such cases often occur in the practice of journalism. The team of the journalists alongside the educational programming prepared some materials that were not that much appreciated by the government.

In January 2008 former journalists of the TV Company “Imedi” established Studio “Akhali Doeba” with its new production “7 Days”. The team abandoned the TV Company in December of 2007, and this was one day before the broadcasting ceased. Since April a total of eleven programs of “7 Days” were aired.

Before that, the journalists visited various international organizations to exchange the information regarding the “TV Imedi”. “TBC TV offered former journalists of the TV Company “Imedi” to sign a contract with its branch “GTV” which will be supplied with equipment.” The contract was signed with for the term of one year and several months before the term of the contract had expired Dachi Grdzelishvili said that Gogi Gegeshidze, one of the founders of the company suddenly stated to journalists that because of financial problems his property was ceased and as a result he had to end their contacts.

Dachi Grdzelishvili stated that if the company has some salary arrears to the journalists of “7 Days”.  In addition, the studio received grant from American Embassy, from the European Union and if it was not for recent setbacks and delays,  they could have achieve upwards of 90 financial independence as of September.”

“Now I can speak only based on hypothesis. However, it might be reason for dropping our contracts. We had 6 cameras and four montage studios and the total price was 15,000 USD. We had also a studio where the programs were actually recorded.

American Embassy is seriously concerned about the situation because it is responsible to the US Congress for the funding provided. We were waiting for the grant in one or two days. At the moment I do not know whether we will appeal to the court or apply to some other measures. The situation must be cleared up this week, and there might be some other resource too that we can access,” said Dachi Grdzelishvili.