Open news feed Close news feed
A A

“Won't enter the forest if scared of wolves”

Interview
89f520e47620c5c724903b0c23d66736

"A1+" has always been known for its innovations. It was the first to have a 24-hour broadcast in the region, the first to update news every two hours, the first to provide live coverage of the elections and more.

Now, for the first time in Armenia, "A1+" offers news on cell-phones. We sat down and talked with President of "A1+" Mesrop Movsesyan.

"Armenia keeps up with innovative technologies and we see them develop at every step of the way, including in the media. Since the shutdown of "A1+" in 2002, we started to apply new technologies and had new opportunities to disperse information because we knew that the vacuum that they wanted to create in Armenia was going to lead to bad effects. Now you can see what the vacuum has partially done: we are a nation that is split into 20 parts and those 20 parts demand something from one another. The reason for this is the lack of factual information in Armenia. What independent mass media outlets and newspapers give is little and they are not as strong as the system that was created by the state which sets constraints on the ideology. We as a nation have lost our ideology that still needs to be modified because we have not contributed to giving the real information, dispersing that information and we have forgotten the real purpose of our job. Ideology comes before business, yet today it is the other way around and we "thank" our authorities for that. What we are doing today is really new in Armenia. We are the first who are experimenting this method and I must say that we have received much feedback. We already have many subscribers without any huge advertisements, as well as our regular subscribers who follow-up on our news every day.

-Don't you think that 300 drams is too much for subscribers to pay each time they watch the news during the current financial/economic crisis?

-It truly is too much, especially in Armenia. We realize that and are working on making it cheaper. It is just a matter of days and we will bring the price down, even if it hits us. I think that this will bring a big wave of subscribers and we will soon have audio news in addition to the video news. This will be more suitable for subscribers and I believe that we will have our audience.

-Is it possible to fit the entire spectrum of news in one minute?

-We set the news for one minute based on the fact that it will be more suitable for the caller because operators sell the megabytes for each minute of viewing at a rather expensive price. That is why we are trying to give as few kilobytes as possible. But we want to broaden our work in this sphere, that is, give new information every two hours and we will accomplish that by the end of the year.

-Isn't there repetition of news?

-There is no need for repetition, but of course, the headlines will be repeated so that the viewers at large will get the information. We plan to do the same for our audio subscribers and want to release new information every 30 minutes. This fits in our plans and we hope to manage it.

-As a rule, there are impediments for "A1+"'s activities. There have been cases when others have taken the videos or have broken the camera. How protected is this new system from, say, hackers?

-We know that. There is a good Russian saying that goes, "The person who is afraid of wolves will not enter the forest." I must say that we are not afraid of wolves. We must scare the wolves away when we enter the forest. We are entering the forest with confidence in order to enjoy the fruits of that forest.