“Analogue frequencies will not remain vacant” (video)
Was it necessary to digitize our TV and resort to such expenditures both for the state and the society? Grigor Amalyan, Director of "Television and Radio Broadcasting Network of Armenia" Closed Joint-Stock Company (CJSC), raised this question and answered it at the meeting with journalists, “Otherwise we would be in imbalance with the world, for importing any program from abroad we had to find our technical solutions in order to transfer it to analogue broadcasting. Hereafter TV sets with analogue device will not be produced in the world. In the end, digital picture and sound have huge qualitative difference. Besides, digital broadcasting has its advantages. For example, a person can stop the online broadcasting, and then again watch that program from where he stopped. It means you can plan the time you want to watch a particular program. It is an interactive option. The analogue broadcasting didn’t have several sound streams, but only one, now they are different with translation and original version.” Mr Amalyan noted that socially vulnerable families will be provided with 1800, and the NKR residents with 2000 digital devices, “For the digitization we were provided USD 15.6 million; we saved USD 400.000. We spent USD 1.7 million on acquisition of devices, USD 11 million- on infrastructures, devices, the rest was returned to the state budget in the form of tax and duties.” The representatives from the Ministry of Transport and the NA must have also been present at the discussion, but besides Grigor Amalyan, the SC lawmaker Azat Arshakyan was present at the discussion. He thinks that digital devices must have been distributed to the society in the form of action by the state. As for the fact that at the moment, when the analogue air is switched off, there are only Turkish channels, Grigor Amalyan answered, saying, “The waves of all the states penetrate into the neighboring countries’ telecommunication network. We cannot do anything against it, it is a natural science. In the same way Iranian and Georgian waves penetrate, as well as our waves penetrate into the neighboring countries. The analogue frequencies will not remain vacant; they will be used for other telecommunication objectives or will be given to private multiplexes.”
