H2
H2, the Second Armenian TV Channel, was founded in 1999 under the name Prometheus. The television company received a license for nationwide broadcasting in 2001. From 2004, it began broadcasting as H2, and the company was renamed Second Armenian TV Channel LLC. For many years, the channel was one of the private television companies with the largest coverage in Armenia and Artsakh.
Second Armenian TV Channel LLC has two shareholders: Natalia Matinyan holds 50% and businessman Samvel Mayrapetyan holds 50%. Mayrapetyan also serves as director of the company. He is currently wanted by law enforcement and involved in several criminal cases. Mayrapetyan is known for construction of elite buildings in Yerevan and is considered a close associate of former President Robert Kocharyan and former Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan.
Following the 2018 change of government, H2 adopted an opposition editorial stance.
On January 15, 2021, the Television and Radio Commission revoked H2's terrestrial broadcasting license. Although the channel's evaluation scores were sufficient to win a slot for capital city broadcasting, it was removed from the air because it had applied only to the nationwide broadcasting competition. The decision effectively took the opposition channel off terrestrial television.
Second Armenian TV Channel LLC appealed to the court, demanding that the competition be declared invalid and H2 be recognized as the winner. The company argued that the number of slots in the competition had been changed after announcement: previously there were six nationwide slots, but as a result of an interstate agreement, one nationwide slot was allocated to a Russian channel.
In June 2021, the company participated in the competition for a capital city broadcasting slot but lost to the newly launched channel of the Public Television Company. The company's lawsuit was satisfied in the Administrative Court and Administrative Court of Appeals. The commission appealed to the Court of Cassation, but on June 7, the cassation appeal was rejected.
In July 2021, the TRC announced a new competition for capital city broadcasting licensing. H2 lost again and filed another court challenge. In 2022, the court declared the January 2021 nationwide broadcasting competition invalid. The TRC then announced a new competition for nationwide broadcasting.
This time, the TRC set the number of slots at four instead of five because H2 was demanding through a separate lawsuit to be recognized as the winner of the previous competition. While that court process was underway, the court froze one slot, allowing a competition for four slots to proceed. In the new competition, four of the six participating television companies won licenses. The opposition channels Yerkir Media and H2 did not receive broadcasting licenses.
H2 management maintains that the decision to remove the channel from terrestrial broadcasting is politically motivated. The channel currently broadcasts only via cable networks and online.
Key Facts
| Audience Share | Missing Data |
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| Ownership Type | Private |
| Geographic Coverage | National |
| Content Type | Paid |
| Data Publicly Available | ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc. |
Ownership
| Ownership Structure | The H2 television channel is broadcast by Second Armenian TV Channel LLC, which has two shareholders: Samvel Mayrapetyan holds 50% and Natalya Matinyan holds 50%. |
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| Voting Rights | The highest governing body of Armenian Second TV Channel LLC is the general meeting of shareholders, which has the ultimate right to resolve any matter concerning the company's management and operations. During voting, the company's shareholders have a number of votes corresponding to their shares in the company's charter capital. The current operations of the company are managed by the director, who is elected by the general meeting of shareholders. The director has the right to enter into transactions on behalf of the company without a power of attorney, provided that the transaction amount does not exceed 25 percent of the net assets. |
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Media Companies / Groups
Facts
| Founding Year | 1999 |
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| Contact | Ajapnyak G-3 3/1 0088 Yerevan Armenia h2@tv.am +374 10 338831 https://tv.am/en |
| Revenue | Missing Data |
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| Operating Profit | Missing Data |
| Advertising (in % of total funding) | Missing Data |
| Market Share | Missing Data |
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| Meta Data | The Second Armenian TV Channel website, h2.am, does not provide information about the company's owners, director, editorial staff, or employees. Ownership and company information was derived from the State Register of Legal Entities and the Television and Radio Commission. Information about the channel's history and licensing disputes was obtained from court documents and media reports. A discrepancy exists in the spelling of co-owner Natalya Matinyan's surname. Some State Register documents list her surname as Martinyan, while the Voters' Register lists it as Matinyan. MOM Team uses Matinyan as it appears in the Voters' Register. Although H2 lost its terrestrial broadcasting license in January 2021 and is not included in the public multiplex, the channel continues broadcasting via major cable network operators, maintaining considerable reach through cable television distribution. Data on audience share and market position are not publicly available. | |
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