The son of former Georgian prime minister billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, has said he will gift equipment for a TV studio to the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB).
The announcement follows an agreement from GPB to rent equipment from rapper Bera Ivanishvili’s Silk Factor Studio in a deal worth ₾372,000 ($149,000) over the next two years.
According to the tender, the equipment was planned to be used for a political programme to be hosted by GPB’s Maka Tsintsadze, a former anchor at Georgian Dream Studio (GDS TV).
Bera labelled the public backlash ‘speculation’ in a statement on 30 October, claiming he knew nothing about the tender. ‘It was not my purpose to gain material benefits with this’, he added.
According to Bera, after GDS TV purchased one of the biggest TV stations, Imedi TV, some of GDS’s equipment remained unused.
‘I want to award this, and all the other equipment at my disposal that my studio does not need anymore, to the First Channel’, Bera said.
GPB runs two separate TV and Radio channels. Since a controversial shift in GPB’s management last year, more than 30 journalists from GDS — which is owned by Bera — have moved to the Public Broadcaster’s First Channel, according toNetgazeti.
According toTVMR Georgia, who measure TV audiences in Georgia using the Nielsen method, TV Imedi has been the most watched station in Georgia in recent months, with the opposition-leaning Rustavi 2 lagging behind. GPB comes fifth in the ratings. However, the Nielsen method does not include social media outreach.
Current head of GPB, Vasil Maghlaperidze, served as deputy director of Metskhre Arkhi, a TV channel owned by Bidzina Ivanishvili, and was later General Producer at GDS. He has been criticised for not being politically neutral, a charge he denies.
Bera’s Silk Factor Studio, founded in February 2017, was the only contender for GPB’s public tender for equipment. The studio is headed by Goga Khaindrava, a director who recently created and directed Herokratia, a TV series alluding to alleged abuses under former President Mikheil Saakashvili. The series aired in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
In another move, GPB is planning to pay ₾480,000 ($180,000) for an entertainment TV series ‘vacancy for the position of the murderer’ to another of Khaindrava’s companies, Le Khaindrao Production.
The former deputy head of Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG), who was arrested on Friday, has threatened to expose government misdeeds.
Tbilisi City Court remanded Soso Gogashvili into pre-trial custody on Monday, three days after a midnight raid by law enforcement agencies on his home on Friday night.
The Prosecutor’s Office has charged him with exceeding official powers, obtaining, storing, and disseminating personal data by using his position, and illegally purchasing and possessing
Bera Ivanishvili has refused to refute the authenticity of recordings of conversations between himself and the Prime Minister in which they discuss sending men to threaten and harass people for leaving unkind comments on Facebook.
Bera, the son of billionaire Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, broke his silence and sat down with TV Imedi, a pro-government TV channel, three days after the publication of explosive tapes of conversations purportedly between Bera and Prime Minister Irakli
A slew of new witnesses have come forward leveling accusations of abusive behaviour by Georgian rapper Bera Ivanishvili, the son of the billionaire founder of Georgian Dream, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
So far, at least seven, people have come forward with allegations following the publication of explosive tapes of conversations purportedly between Bera and Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili.
The tapes appear to show Gharibashvili, and the head of Georgia’s Special State Protection Service (SSPS)
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili is facing fresh calls to resign after recordings emerged in which he appears to agree to send police officers to intimidate critics of Bera Ivanishvili.
Opposition-leaning channel TV Pirveli aired the recordings of Bera Ivanishvili, a rapper and the son of Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili on 6 March. In them, he appears to instruct Gharibashvili and other officials to punish people who had insulted him on Facebook.
The ruling party has n