Georgia’s state media regulator has fined the opposition-leaning television channel Formula for breaching impartiality standards, in the first such sanction under controversial new broadcasting laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Communications Commission (ComCom) ordered the station to pay 2,500 lari (\u00a3740; $940) following a monitoring review of its news programmes in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The regulator said Formula had violated legal requirements for balance and impartiality, citing the dissemination of “personal opinions” by its journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phrases flagged as violations included referring to the administration as “Ivanishvili’s government”\u2014a reference to Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili\u2014the courts as “the regime’s judiciary”, and calling a rival station “pro-government Rustavi 2”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such terms are frequently used by critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party, particularly since disputed parliamentary elections in October 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ComCom also accused the channel of failing to provide balance in a report about parents demanding medicine for children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, alleging that the health ministry’s perspective was omitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Formula told local media outlet OC Media that it plans to appeal against the ruling once it receives the formal decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The broadcaster had previously received a written warning, prompting the regulator to issue what it described as the “minimum fine” for a repeat offence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under legislative changes introduced by the ruling party in 2025, the power to regulate broadcasting standards was transferred from self-regulatory bodies within individual television stations to ComCom, a state regulator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Critics have expressed concern over the independence of the body, which is chaired by Goga Gulordava, a former Georgian Dream member of parliament who was elected to the post in January 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In March, ComCom announced it would proactively enforce compliance with broadcasting provisions. The decision followed a strong reaction from Georgian authorities after the UK sanctioned two pro-government Georgian channels, POSTV and Imedi, over the dissemination of Russian disinformation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Georgia’s state media regulator has fined the opposition-leaning television channel Formula for breaching impartiality standards, in the first such sanction under controversial new broadcasting laws. The Communications Commission (ComCom) ordered the station to pay 2,500 lari (\u00a3740; $940) following a monitoring review of its news programmes in April. The regulator said Formula had violated legal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1047],"class_list":["post-31518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-feed","tag-editor"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31521,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31518\/revisions\/31521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irfs.org\/az\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}