“Georgia currently has more than 100 television channels and a highly pluralistic media environment, which is a treasured achievement for our whole society. Unfortunately, this diverse media environment is saturated with low standards of professionalism, fake news, hate speech, threats, insults and obscenity. The Georgian Public Broadcaster is an exception in this regard, as confirmed by the results of the media monitoring process conducted by the Communications Commission during the...

The Communications Commission has published the final ComCom Digest for 2020, which includes a summary of the key decisions taken by the Commission during the past year, as well as the implemented projects, innovative services and events on the telecommunications market. Against the background of the pandemic, the year 2020 once again showed us the importance of orderly and effective operation of the telecommunications market, with the regulator playing a key role in this process. The success...

The Communications Commission is publishing the second media monitoring report for the pre-election period of the Georgian parliamentary elections, consisting of qualitative and quantitative assessment of the activities of broadcasters. Monitoring was carried out from 1 October until and including 31 October. Six national broadcasters were monitored during the prime time period between 19:00 and 00:00 each day. Qualitative monitoring applied to the First Channel of the Georgian Public...

The Communications Commission is publishing the third media monitoring report for the Georgian parliamentary elections, which includes qualitative and quantitative analysis of broadcasters during the reporting period of 1-21 November. As was the case in September and October, coverage of the second round of elections was conducted in accordance with the ethical norms by the Georgian Public Broadcaster, Rustavi 2 and Adjara TV, while Imedi, Mtavari Arkhi and TV Pirveli conducted biased...

Last year, the Media Academy of the Communications Commission established the platform Mediacritic.ge, which acted as a guide between the public and the media. For the past year, this unprecedented step towards the development of media critique has served to enable critical perception of information and the making of sensible and informed choices. During this short period of time, the number of visitors to the platform has already exceeded half a million. Apart from strengthening the...

Mtavari Arkhi collected the highest amount of revenue (GEL 4,270,075) from paid pre-election advertising, as shown by the Communication Commission’s analysis of free and paid political advertising during the 2020 Georgian parliamentary elections. The average cost per minute of placing paid political advertising on Mtavari Arkhi was GEL 5,583. Mtavari Arkhi allocated 66.2% of its paid political advertising time to the United National Movement, which accounted for 62.9% of the...

The Communication Commission’s analysis of free and paid political advertising during the 2020 Georgian parliamentary elections showed that broadcasters allocated almost 30,000 minutes in combined air time to free political advertising. In proportion to the cost of paid advertising during the same period of time, the total value of the aforementioned free adverts was approximately GEL 62.5 million. As for paid political advertising, information supplied by the broadcasters showed that...

According to Article 50.1 of the Election Code of Georgia, a broadcast license holder, an authorised over-the-air broadcaster, the Public Broadcaster and Adjara TV and Radio of the Public Broadcaster must, if airtime is allotted for pre-election campaigning and political advertising, publicly announce and weekly submit to the GNCC the following information: from and until what date and at what intervals the airtime is allotted, its duration and schedule of the allotted airtime during one...

Certain sections of the non-governmental sector are categorising the use of obscenity and hate speech on air as freedom of expression. Moreover, they claim that regulating the use of coarse language and obscenity will threaten freedom of expression in the country. To this end, they are offering false interpretations of the Georgian legislation and the practices of the Constitutional Court, thereby misleading the public. We wish to make it clear that by issuing the statement on 7 December, the...