Armenia's rebel TV goes live again

Armenia’s leading independent television station has officially started live broadcasting through the Internet for the first time in 8 years after being controversially pulled off the air by the authorities.

The company announced plans to launch live internet broadcasting back in May and was hoping to go live in June. Lack of good quality broadband access and poor testing results delayed the plans however, and after initial testing on hosted video streaming solutions like Livestream, the company was forced to opt for an in-house solution and now offers Low Bandwidth and Medium Bandwidth options good for the most types of bandwidth available in Armenia with a potential audience exceeding 200,000 broadband consumers.

8 years of struggle for air

The most trusted name in Armenian broadcast news at the time, “A1+” TV channel was shut down on April 2, 2002. The TV company was highly critical of than President Robert Kocharian and the move to shut it down was seen as an attempt to take it off the air ahead of Presidential elections scheduled in 2003.


Since April, 2002, “A1+” television Company has participated in a dozen government-run tenders on broadcast licensing, and it has been refused a license on every occasion by the National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR), a state licensing authority fully controlled by president Robert Kocharian.