Lori TV, which has been broadcasting since 1995, and the other 11 regional channels remained out, as their licenses were not extended. What is at stake is Armenia’s media diversity, maintains both journalists and rights’ groups, and the chance to offer a variety of views on issues affecting the country’s regions - there is more to Armenia than just Yerevan, and regional broadcasters are essential.

Following protests from media organizations the deadline was extended to end in 2015, then again extended to the end of 2016, allowing regional companies to continue operating under their current licenses until an open tender would select a private multiplexer to operate nationwide. The plan was for a private company to operate a multiplexer, a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one over a shared medium, to install transmission towers and stations, and develop a thorough distribution network enabling the regional TV channels to broadcast. There’s a catch - the tender evaporated and the National Committee on Television and Radio did not select the expected private provider.

According to the head of the “Committee on the Defense of Freedom of Speech,” Ashot Melikyan, the glitch was procedural.

“The requirements were demanding, that’s why it failed,” explains Melikyan who heads the Yerevan-based NGO advocating for transparency and freedom of expression. “The competition was cancelled, the conditions set for the ownership of the private multiplexer were not attractive and quite hard [to meet].”

Neighboring Georgia, which switched to digital in July 2015, allowed several small and medium-sized multiplexers to operate instead of a large, single one.

“If we had applied that experience, left-out TV stations could team up and create small multiplexers [thus] continuing their professional activity,” adds Melikyan who maintains that one single, private company covering the whole of Armenia would raise questions about monopoly.