78% and 0,2% of Georgian Advertising Market 2008 Occupied by Television and Internet Respectively

Inthe course of the February 26-27 meeting held at the Vere Palace Hotel the International Transparency Georgia experts introduced regional journalists the outcome of the survey 2009 whose one of the main components covers media situation in Georgia.

Mathias Huter, analyst of the Transparency International Georgia summarized the survey of the Georgian media conducted by the Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC). The project was funded by EU. The survey was carried out in August-November 2009 across the country and up to 2,000 people selected at random took part in the study.

According to the findings as a result of the survey, Mathias Huter said, print media market faces problems in regard to professional media management, scarce circulation, low level of reporting, scarcity of interesting articles, inefficient and expensive system of distribution, lack of advertising, nontransparency of owners, lack of cooperation between publishers and stability.

When discussing the distribution issue Mathias Huter underlined the attempt of monopolizing the sale of newspapers and magazines in the streets. In addition, he stressed the faultiness of the postal service and distribution system and the absence of coordination among the publishers.

Referring to the CRRC survey Mathias Huter said media ownership and subsidies in print media lack transparency. Nontransparency is also characteristic to the advertising market being controlled by few people. The CRRC analyst illustrated the Georgian advertising market survey 2008 according to which the biggest pie of the whole volume of advertising was occupied by TV with 77,6%, radio advertising - 6,7%, street advertising - 5,9%, magazine advertising 4,6% and online advertising - 0,2%.