Director General of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Noel Curran met Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili.
Director General of the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB), Tinatin Berdzenishvili, and Chairman of the GPB Board of Trustees, Vasil Maghlaperidze attended the meeting.
According to Noel Curran, the meeting with the Parliament Speaker was constructive.
“We had a very constructive meeting with the Chairman and I am grateful to him for giving his time for such a long and constructive discussion. We talked about my experience of being in Tbilisi and seeing the huge ambition that public broadcasting has in Georgia, seeing the strides that GPB is taking in terms of the digital world and all that is going on in the organization, and that success.
I emphasized to the Chairman the need for that ambition to be fulfilled, the need for independence of the public media in Georgia, the need for proper stable funding, which is independent of the government, in order for all the ambition that the GPB has and the digital ambition and the ambition ultimately to serve the Georgian audience, that needs to be properly funded, and it needs to be independent of government. I think the chairman accepted those principles and we had a very good, positive, and constructive discussion around those,” he said.
Tinatin Berdzenishvili said that the meeting focused on the needs of the Georgian Public Broadcaster.
“Public Broadcaster is a truly European institution, which is essential for the country’s democracy and development. We spoke about the significance of the GPB’s independence, funding models, and the agreement, which is, in fact, almost reached with the parliament – we should talk about altering GPB’s funding. This must not be done. There should be a fixed budget that could be agreed from year to year. This is essential to avoid any interference in editorial policy, to maintain public broadcaster, which will develop our country,” she said.
The Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) hosts the 18th News Assembly of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on November 22-23.
