Armenia broadcasts nearly 2,000 TV shows, and most of them are in Russian. This is what Chairman of the National Commission on Television and Radio of Armenia Tigran Hakobyan said as he presented the report on the activities of the National Commission on Television and Radio of Armenia at the National Assembly today.

According to him, cable TV has helped increase the number of TV shows in foreign languages. However, he admitted that out of the “foreign TV shows”, people in Armenia only understand shows in Russian, even though there are TV shows that are broadcast in French, Spanish, English and German.

He also stated that Armenian television stations “are compelled to permit the presence of foreign television companies” at the public multiplex level and, according to him, this poses a threat to a certain extent. “No other country lets foreign television companies connect to the particular country’s public multiplex (Russian TV channels are fully or partially broadcast in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with national frequencies-ed.). There are different reasons for this, taking into consideration the preservation of the national language and the ensuring of information security. It is impossible to apply sanctions against these foreign television companies by law, if they don’t commit violations,” Hakobyan said, adding that it is rather difficult to imagine how Armenia will fine the Rosia TV channel, if it violates Armenia’s legislation.