The Communications Commission has issued written warnings to four television stations, including two pro-government channels, for violating the Law of Georgia on Broadcasting. The channels involved are the government-critical outlets Formula and TV Pirveli, as well as pro-government broadcasters POSTV and Imedi. The Commission issued the warnings based on violations of articles concerning content regulation.

According to ComCom, the issue was placed on the agenda following its own media monitoring. The stations were accused of failing to meet standards regarding impartiality, balance, reporting based on personal attitudes/opinions, and factual accuracy. For instance, the Commission determined that by using phrases such as “Dream’s Prosecutor’s Office,” “Dream’s Parliament,” “Ivanishvili’s Prime Minister,” “Rajden Kuprashvili’s agency,” “with members of the Dream government,” and “judicial clan,” Formula covered issues based on the broadcaster’s personal attitude or opinion in its news programming, thereby violating the law.

During the monitoring process, ComCom’s Media Services Regulation Department “discovered” the highest number of potential violations at the independent channels—20 for Formula and 18 for TV Pirveli. The lowest number of violations were attributed to the pro-government outlets: Imedi (4 violations), which has been sanctioned for spreading Russian disinformation, and POSTV (7 violations).

On this occasion, the Communications Commission limited its response to written warnings on the grounds that none of these television stations had been sanctioned for similar violations within the past year.

It is worth noting that in early March, following the sanctioning of pro-government Imedi and POSTV, ComCom released a threatening statement announcing it would begin monitoring broadcaster content starting in March. Last year, Georgian Dream passed repressive amendments to the Law on Broadcasting, which are linked to the regulation of broadcaster content.