Head of TV and Radio Commission: Church component on Shoghakat TV channel should be reduced

May 01 2024, 00:20

Politics

Vahagn Aleksanyan, MP from the Civil Contract faction, asked Tigran Hakobyan, Chair of Armenia’s TV and Radio Commission, what kind of TV channel ‘Shoghakat’ is, who owns it, what it broadcasts, and what it should broadcast.

“It is one of the TV channels of the public broadcaster, which is not licensed. It used to be called a spiritual channel, and after the new law comes into force, that channel must broadcast educational and cultural shows. In other words, it is not spiritual in its genre,” Hakobyan said.

He mentioned that an official letter was written to the head of the Council of Public Television.

“We have a problem because the educational and cultural components occupy a significant place on the channel, but the church has the biggest component. We believe that it should be reduced, and there should be TV programs for which ‘Shoghakat’ is financed by the state. These are educational, scientific, and cultural programs.

As far as I am informed, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin also finances, co-finances, and annually allocates quite a large sum for the activities of ‘Shoghakat’. To some extent, it has autonomy among public broadcasters,” Hakobyan said.