Ex-PM's family-owned TV broadcast license may be revoked

Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC) has begun proceedings to revoke the broadcasting license of Channel Nine.

Channel Nine is formerly owned by the family of ex-PM Bidzina Ivanishvili. The TV channel stopped broadcasting in August last year after Ivansihvili decided to stop financing it.

GNCC said the decision to start proceedings against Channel Nine was based on the Law on Broadcasting, which envisaged that ceasing broadcasting according to previously agreed rules could cause revocation of the license.

The TV channel had operated for more than a year until it stopped on August 19, 2013. Since then, the TV channel owned the broadcasting license but did not use it as the channel was not operating. Ivanishvili said he was trying to sell the TV channel but nobody was interested in purchasing it.

Until recently Bidzina Ivanishvili’s wife, Ekaterina Khvedelidze, was the majority shareholder (80%) of the LTD Accept, which is the owner of Channel Nine. She sold her shares to Leri Kapanadze for ten Georgian Lari ($5.7 USD) on January 29.

The new majority shareholder of Accept is the owner of various other companies and a Board member of the football club Chikhura, in the Sachkhere province where Ivanishvili was born.

Another 20% of shares is owned by a relative of Ekaterina Khvedelidze, Kakha Kobiahsvili.

On February 4 at a press conference dedicated to Ivanishvili’s new non-governmental organisation Citizen, the ex-PM said he did not know what to do with the Channel Nine technical equipment since no one was interested in acquiring it.