What follows is an excerpt from a field study by Paul Greenberg of Internews based on his survey of independent radio and television in the Caucasus region states during early summer 1995. For the complete study, contact Internews in Arcata, California or Eric Johnson at fsumdedia@sovam.com
In spite of five years of war and ethnic conflict
and almost complete infrastructure collapse, there are between thirty and
sixty non-government television stations on the air in Armenia, Georgia,
and Azerbaijan. They are small, low-power operations which employ usually
no more than twenty individuals each. They are confronted daily with political
instability that manifests itself in the form of resource scarcities.
Though political tensions between the three republics seem to have eased in recent months, peace in Transcaucasia faces a new threat—i.e. the potential for Balkanization within each of the Caucasian nations. The significant infrastructure collapse that has taken place over the last five years has left many provincial regions completely isolated from national capitals as well as from surrounding regions. Telephone communications between cities are almost non-existent as are postal and rail services. For this reason, television stations in the Caucasus are of an extremely local nature, rarely incorporating national or international news into their regular broadcasts.
As in all NIS states, the Caucasian nations have had to cope with a reduction in energy resources and become more dependent on their own fuel resources. The problem is particularly marked in Georgia and Armenia where practically no fossil fuel deposits exist. The number of hours of electricity per day allotted to citizens of those countries has dropped dramatically in the last four years. Even some cities in oil-rich Azerbaijan (Zaqatala, Shekhi) showed significant reductions in available kilowatt hours.
The scramble for political power in these countries has grown more frantic while resources have declined. As a result electricity and political power have become inextricably linked. Local mayors, governors, and even mafia figures that are able to procure energy for their cities and regions are able to garner vast political support. Once they control the supply of electricity, many local politicians turn to television as a means of stabilizing and expanding their power.
The degree to which energy, political power, and television are interconnected depends often upon the strength of the individual people involved and the severity of the local energy crisis. Kutaisi in Georgia is a city where strong personalities have linked the three together almost inextricably.
In other cases, the television station itself often becomes the political and moral force for a town. Such was the case in the town of Ashtarak in Armenia. Ashtarak was in a state of almost total blackout this past winter and so the station aired infrequently. But according to the station director, Ashtarak TV helped restore power to the city by demanding on air that the city administration take action in resolving the problem. To quote the station director, Vagram Botsinyan, we said to the city administration, either there will be power in Ashtarak or there will be no city administration. Shortly thereafter power was returned and new tariffs were put into effect whereby citizens now pay for the amount of electricity they use.
Television stations in the Caucasus must balance their needs for electrical power with their need for political support. Their problems are compounded by the fact that no clear broadcast laws exist in these countries at the present time.
BROADCAST LAW AND CENSORSHIP
Alhough each Caucasian country has a law governing press and the media, these laws are merely copies of older Soviet laws and have not been revised to meet current needs. Therefore broadcast law in the Caucasus is somewhat ad hoc at the moment. Stations reported little difficulty in obtaining full license on frequencies and very little interference from national authorities when doing so. Elements of control seem more often exercised from local sponsors who for political or economic reasons effectively monitor and control the creative output of the station. Though there were few instances of government interference with television outside the nations capitals, regional broadcasters often noted that they felt vulnerable without a legitimate broadcast law to protect them.
Instances of censorship on a national level were noted in each of three republics during the research period. In Armenia a newspaper, Golos Armenia (Voice of Armenia) was closed down during our visit, but individuals differed as to whether this was politically or economically motivated. In Georgia, President Shevardnadze has proposed a law forbidding coverage of elections by local media. Station managers were skeptical that such a law could be enforced.
Of the three national governments, Azerbaijan interferes the most in the affairs of local television. At present, almost all Azeri stations have a clause written into their licenses that restricts them to the broadcasting of entertainment programming only. Only Azerbaijan News Service (ANS) in Baku has avoided this restriction, probably because of ANS management ‘s good relations with president Aliyev s son. Yet they, too, have suffered closures on several occasions.
Most of the political threats that stations receive occur on a local level and are usually economically motivated. Just as this report is being written, Internews received word that Rustavi 2 Television in Rustavi is being threatened with seizure of equipment and a full financial investigation. The city administration is also threatening to raise Rustavi-2 s rent in spite of the fact that the station has a five-year lease on its space and the rest of the building it occupies is almost empty.
Development of independent television in the Caucasus differs radically from that of the Northern NIS states. A primary reason for this is that even during Soviet times there was a relative paucity of government-owned television stations in provincial Transcaucasia. Prior to the founding of independent stations, most Caucasian cities had no local television at all. In each Caucasian state a single government station in each capital, along with a handful of retransmitters in secondary cities, was sufficient for the rebroadcast of Soviet state television and the second republican-level government channel. Medium to small-sized cities simply did without local news and information. Correspondents for government television relayed information from those cities to the republican Gostel in the capitals. This information was then broadcast back into the regions.
BUILDING FROM SCRATCH
The fact that there was practically no provincial television in the Caucasus meant that many stations had to build from scratch after the breakup of the Soviet Union. In Russia, private television stations most frequently were created by groups of individuals who left regional government television and formed their own private editorial groups or redaktsii. These redaktsii would rent time from the government station and would eventually break away completely to form their own discrete channels. Though there are a few examples of this pattern of development in the Caucasus (A-1 in Yerevan, Armenia, Tsre in Tbilisi, Georgia), most stations in the three Caucasian nations began outside of local government television affiliates and other ministry of communications structures.
But just because these stations began outside of government structures does not mean they are totally independent. To put it simply, television is an expensive medium and launching even a modest television venture requires significant capital outlays. Caucasian cities are poor. With a few exceptions (e.g. Borjomi TV in Borjomi, Georgia — sponsored by the Borjomi mineral water bottling factory) there are no strong industrial entities that can sponsor a station in the way many large factories in Russia have done. Therefore the only way enough money can be amassed to launch a television station is by combining tax moneys, illicit funds from private sponsors, and public support in the form of volunteerism. Thus many stations receive regular infusions of quasi-governmental resources even though they are technically independent. The local Caucasian television station is typically part private, part government, and part something else.
There have been three basic models of television development in the Caucasus. The first model is best described as a scavenger model and is common among stations in cities of less than 100,000 (Aigyun in Zaqatala, Az; Zari in Samtrediya, Ge, Trialeti, in Kareli, Ge). In these cases managers with good engineering skills assembled stations piece by piece. Often these managers worked in technical fields like television repair and so were able to glean extra spare parts. Trialeti in Karelli, Georgia is a particularly dramatic example of the scavenger model. There, nearly every piece of wiring and hardware was assembled by hand. The only exception is their transmitter which was left behind by the retreating army of Zviad Gamsakhurdia in 1992. The station manager himself has no formal television training and admitted to failing the state television institute entrance exam several times. Scavenger stations are likely to own old Soviet equipment purchased at discount prices when government stations either collapsed or converted to more advanced tape formats.
Stations that follow the second or sponsorship model of development began with a single, large donation from a private individual. In stations like Guriskoe Televidinie in Ozurghetti, Georgia and Shant in Gyumri, Armenia a single sponsor secures a facility and equipment for the manager. The sponsorship may come in the form of direct financial investment or through the granting of a favor. The station facility in Ozurghetti for example is a lavish winter garden ornamented with an indoor water fall and elaborate mosaics. This building once belonged to the local collective farm but was deeded to the television station due to the influence of the local sponsor. In Armenia, citizens returning from the diaspora have made donations to Shant in Gyumri and Interkap in Vanadzor.
The two stations that followed the third or stringer model came into being directly as a result of the wars in the Caucasus. Azerbaijan News Service (ANS) in Baku and Bars Media in Yerevan started as production companies that provided combat news footage for international news agency like Reuters and WTN. Initially footage from the Karabakh and Georgian civil wars brought high revenues from news agencies — as much as $2000 for a two-minute news spot. With overhead being relatively low, these production companies soon accrued enough money to purchase professional Betacam shooting and editing equipment.
As armed conflicts subsided and profits from the
sale of news ebbed, these production houses started to look more toward
on-air advertising and international assistance for income. ANS in Baku
was the most opportunistic in this sense. Having garnered their own frequency
and transmitter, ANS was able to use its sophisticated equipment to produce
and air commercials for domestic as well as international clients. ANS
has also received assistance in the form of WorldNet programming and editing
facilities from the US Embassy and now airs a wide array of programs. Several
large foreign advertisers market their products over ANS air time. Bars
Media in Yerevan has taken a more non-profit approach, seeking to produce
documentaries on conflict resolution and other post-war issues. Bars recently
received a grant from UNESCO and hopes to receive funding from other sources
for future non-profit projects.