Imedi TV station, the second most watched channel in Georgia, has announced about suspending its political talk shows.

As a result two weekly talk shows on Imedi TV – Reaqtsia (Reaction) on Fridays and Imedis Kvira on Sundays – will not be resumed after a summer break in September.

The channel, owned by the family of late tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, said in a brief statement on August 29: “From the autumn season Imedi TV is temporarily suspending public-political talk shows. The reason is our desire to change existing format of programming and to develop qualitatively new TV products, which we will offer to the viewers from 2016.”
 
Inga Grigolia, who was a host of one and a co-host of another suspended talk shows, said in a statement on her Facebook page on Sunday, that she was “bewildered” by the television station’s decision and claimed that Imedi TV did so upon authorities’ “instructions.”

“I have all the right to believe that it was a political decision, because not a single television channel closes down shows which bring ad revenues and have high viewership. Therefore I think that it is a political decision – not to keep me on TV screen ahead of the elections… I think that Imedi TV has fulfilled a political instruction and did it in a very bad way – in one day it closed down two talk shows, which were hosted by me,” said Grigolia, a long-time journalist, who went into politics in 2010 and was with the Christian-Democratic Movement, but made a journalistic comeback in 2013.

Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, a self-regulatory body for about couple of hundred journalists united under the ethics charter, said in a statement on August 30 that closing down of two popular political talk shows “will have a negative impact on media diversity, as well as on political processes in the country.”

“As a private television station, Imedi TV’s management has all the rights to carry out changes, but the broadcaster should take into consideration public demand and legitimate expectation to have full and comprehensive information about the changes going on in the television station. Imedi TV’s official statement can hardly be considered to be providing such information as it triggers more questions than gives answers. We believe that the broadcaster should show more respect towards the public and do its utmost to prove that its decision is not political motivated,” reads the statements.

Imedi TV earned GEL 10.2 million in advertisement revenues in the first half of this year, which is much less than its main competitor and the most-watched Rustavi 2 TV’s GEL 21.5 million in the same period.