Public Radio of Armenia

Armenia Public Radio was established by decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia on February 23, 1925, with the first experimental broadcast transmitted on September 1, 1926, from the railway station building in Yerevan.

Armen Qoloyan is the Director of Public Radio of Armenia. He graduated in 1979 from the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after Vladimir Lenin. After university, he worked in Armenia as a school child psychologist and speech therapist. In the 1980s, he worked at the Komsomolets newspaper and at the State Committee of Television and Radio of Armenia as an assistant director and director in the educational and popular science programs department.

As a journalist, Qoloyan worked at the press and information center of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF). From 1992, he contributed to the Russian and later Armenian services of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). In 1993, he joined the Armenian service at RFE/RL's Munich headquarters. From 1995 to 2024, he worked at RFE/RL's Prague headquarters.

In 2024, Qoloyan returned to Yerevan. On July 29, 2024, the Public Broadcaster Council elected him Director of Public Radio of Armenia.

Among the contenders for the position was Garegin Khumaryan, former Director of Public Radio. On July 22, 2024, one week before Qoloyan's election, Khumaryan posted on Facebook expressing his suspicion that the Public Broadcaster Council was preparing to elect Qoloyan as Director.

Khumaryan stated that before the election, Qoloyan had a meeting at the Government with Ara Shirinyan, then-Chairman of the Public Broadcaster Council, implying that his election had been predetermined and that the competition was merely formal.

Garegin Khumaryan served as Director of Public Radio of Armenia from 2019 to April 2024.

On January 31, 2024, Public Radio's Security Environment program hosted Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. On February 5, Khumaryan published an article on Public Radio's website apologizing for the program's quality and expressing disagreement with some of the Prime Minister's statements. He also criticized the interviewer's performance.

On February 6, the Public Broadcaster Council issued a statement asserting that Khumaryan had prima facie abused his authority and official position by using Public Radio's website to present personal opinions. The Ethics Monitoring Body, responding to the Council's application, analyzed Khumaryan's article and found no violations of journalistic ethics norms.

Relations between Khumaryan and the Council became strained following this incident. His term expired on April 12, 2024. He participated in the competition for reappointment. After no candidates were selected in the first round, the Council appointed Armen Qoloyan as Director in the second competition.

Khumaryan has legally challenged the Council's decisions regarding Qoloyan's selection and appointment.

Vasak Darbinian was elected chairman of the Public Broadcaster Council on June 2, 2025, having been appointed as a PBC member by the Prime Minister in October 2021.

Darbinian has worked in the media sector since 1982, beginning at the weekly newspaper Yerevan University. He has worked as a journalist and chief editor at periodicals including Hayk, 02, Tert, Aravot, Zhamanak, Taregir, and Ayb-Fe. He held editorial positions in television, including editor of the Public Television program Haylur (1998-1999), author and editor of Day's Press on Armenia TV (1999-2000), and author and editor of A1+ Press on A1+ TV. He worked as a press expert at the Committee for the Protection of Freedom of Speech (2014-2015).

Before his appointment to the Public Broadcaster Council, Darbinian worked as a proofreader at Armenian Time (2016-2021), a media outlet associated with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Both Pashinyan and his wife Anna Hakobyan worked at this outlet, with Hakobyan serving as editor. Currently, 70% of the shares of the company managing Armenian Time belong to Anna Hakobyan's mother.