Here is an interesting piece of information from the report – “Haylur” attracts a substantial audience. Audience research by AGB Nielsen and Eurodata placed H1’s news programme as ninth in the list of hte most watched programmes in Armenia in 2007. But viewing appears to have declined in 2008. From a high of 352,000 viewers in February and a market share of 34%, audiences have dropped month by month to 147,000 in June and a share of 22%. We did not have access to statistics for other broadcasters for this period so cannot say whether the drop is specific to PTV or part of a general trend.
However, we did do a spot-check in thee week of our visit to compare H1’s figures with its nearest news rival, Shant TV. On july 15, “Haylur” attracted ratings of 6.2% and a share of 18.1%, behind Shant Tv’s “horizon” which had 10.2% ratings and a 26.7% share. This may have just been a bad day for “Haylur” or a good day for “horizon”. Shant may have had a stronger peak-time programme schedule that evening. But one observer offered the view that Shant’s news was livelier and carried more stories that “are closer to the people”. We are not in a position to make a comparative judgment but it is noteworthy that “Haylur”, while watched extensively throughout the country, is facing stiff competition.
The report is not yet online but it was mentioned during the presentation that it will be available at the OSCE website. The assessment is quite interesting, if nothing else at least for showing that trust towards H1 is declining.
Via Office Zombie
I totally agree. H1 is conducting itself in a shameful manner. It’s coverage of events is biased, and often seems almost deliberately “word heavy” . As a result people are distanced from the stories and despite their efforts to be more ” relaxed” , it still has a communist mouthpiece feel to it.
I personally have always watched Shant TV news when in Armenia, but recently since it broadcast via satellite, people around me have commented on 1) How much more slowly the news readers speak ( compared to the unneccesarily fast paced speech on haylur 2) The language style of the program is more “with the people” as opposed to looking down on them. This is the reason why I believe Shant is now one of the fastest growing tv networks in Armenia. If they just concentrate a little more on their current affairs programming, they will easily beat the millions of dollars of ARmenia TV, and the “bitter old grandmother” style of H1’s programming. I am all for high brow content, but not when you are a the main channel of a public service network, you need to have appeal, and for gods sake buy some new equipment 🙂
The style of writing is quite familiar to me. Have you written guest posts for other blogs?