The View from Tbilisi: Offshoring Georgia's Media

In a 20 November report on Georgia’s broadcasting landscape, Transparency International concluded that the country's media "is less free and pluralistic than it was before the Rose Revolution in 2003." While the media law is in line with European norms and the print press is robust, the report asserted, regulation of television is severely lacking, resulting in an uncompetitive market in which ownership of major stations is murky.

Georgian law places no restrictions on foreign-held shares in domestic broadcasters, but who stands behind those offshore entities is rarely clear. Rustavi 2, the No. 1 station with more than a third of the TV market, is 70 percent owned by Degson Limited, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands; the same group holds 55 percent of the small national station Mze. Another offshore group, Denal Union, owns 100 percent of Sakartvelo, a Tbilisi channel that fills its airtime with military-related comment under an agreement with the Defense Ministry. All three stations generally parrot the government's positions and propagate its policies.

Such examples fuel widespread suspicion in political and civil society circles and on the street, where concern over foreign meddling in Georgian affairs mixes with rumors that offshore stakeholders are really fronts for cabinet agencies, opposition groups, even President Mikheil Saakashvili himself. Without stricter control of foreign ownership, some argue, Georgia's media lacks transparency, credibility, and accountability. Others salute the goal of making it more clear who is in control but doubt that eradicating offshore ownership is the means to achieve it.

For this third in a series of video reports on media and democracy issues in Georgia, reporters from the Tbilisi biweekly Liberali put the question of foreign media ownership to two experts – a member of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association, a prominent civil society group, and an attorney with the Georgian National Communications Commission – as well as passers-by on a busy street in the capital.

Offshoring Georgia's Media from Transitions Online on Vimeo.

Iago Kurashvili and Nino Kakhishvili are freelance journalists in Tbilisi and Liberali contributors. Funding for this project was provided by the Czech Foreign Ministry as part of the Czech Republic's Transition Promotion Program.

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