YEREVAN.- Armenian media in the period from October 1 to December 15, 2012, paid the most attention to the political forces and figures who have not joined the presidential race,  head of the Yerevan Press Club Boris Navasardyan told reporters, summarizing interim monitoring of broadcast media coverage of the presidential election.

According to him, during the period from October 1 to December 15, 60% of Armenian media attention was directed at the political forces, which later withdrew from the presidential race, in particular, Prosperous Armenia, the Armenian National Congress and ARF Dashnaktsutyun. He noted that the remaining 40% is distributed among the candidates, who will continue to fight for the presidency.

Navasardyan added that the name of the politician, director of “Radio Hay” Andreas Ghukasyan was not mentioned in the media at all before December 15 as a possible candidate for the presidency, which is, first of all related to his passiveness in that period. According to the monitoring results, presidential candidates and political forces gained most attention in the mentioned period from TV Armnews, followed by Armenian Public Radio, Armradio, Yerkir Media and Kentron channels.  Shant television paid the least attention to political sector:

“Most frequently the names of the incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan, the leader of Prosperous Armenia Gagik Tsarukyan, leader of Heritage party Raffi Hovannisian and first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan were mentioned as a possible candidate,” he added.

Seven national TV channels were monitored: Public TV of Armenia, Second Armenian TV Channel, TV channels Armenia, Yerkir Media, Kentron, Shant and Armnews, as well as the Armenian Public Radio and Armradio FM107.

Monitoring is carried out under the project “Support to two electoral cycles in Armenia”, implemented by the OSCE Office in Yerevan with the financial assistance of the EU.

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/ NEWS.am