Public TV to Reduce News
The Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) is to decrease the number of news bulletins from four to three starting in autumn.
“The share of airtime allocated for news coverage will be reduced,” Levan Gakheladze, chairman of GPB board of trustees, said in an interview with the RFE/RL Georgian Service on July 23. “There will be a total of three news bulletins per day; this is caused by an objective reality; Georgia is a small country and not many things are happening that would require, let’s say, an hourly news bulletin.”
Currently the GPB airs four news bulletins a day: at noon, 3pm and 6pm, and the main news bulletin at 8pm. Until recently, it had hourly news bulletins.
Gakheladze also said that the station planned to launch political and social talk-shows, as well as investigative programmes and a series dedicated to human rights.
In June the GPB closed down a weekly political programme, Shvidi Dge (Seven Days). Gakheladze said it had happened because of a near zero rating.