How Commercial is Commercial Media in Georgia?
OP-ED
The Georgian television market is both rich and poor. Rich because there are more than 50 TV stations on cable here, broadcasting to just a one million viewership – I mean a million by any possible stretch. And poor because none of those media players make a profit, or even break even. They daydream about the revenues that might be worth writing home about. If only they were real!
The Georgian television industry is business magic. It is working perfectly well, with myriad high-quality and attractive programs, using a lot of staff to produce them, but all in vain – working for nothing. Why should one sweat so much over something if there is no bread-and butter and mug of beer expected beyond that ‘something’? This is a truly weird style of doing business, to say the least. Shouldn’t commercial media be commercial? I’ve written before on this curious theme, although to no avail. As the saying has it, the dogs are barking, but the caravan moves on.
It would not take a rocket scientist to make a slightly educated guess that the broadcast media in Georgia is used mostly to political ends, plus an interesting element of satisfying the personal ambition of the finicky owners of those white elephants who can afford the pleasure of tinkering with a handsome little plaything, plus the potential profits in case the Georgian economy grows and flourishes some day so much that the television market turns from a commercial desert into a greenback oasis. I have nothing else on earth to deduce from this.
On the other hand, believe it or not, the Georgian media has certain capitalistic features like taking over somebody else’s better media personnel, or the ‘human resources’ as modern euphemistic terminology would have it. This is a new feature of the Georgian media industry, and often, it is handled with a certain amount of pungency and exacerbation, the acidity being egregiously political, heard and felt in political speeches and in occasional comments of the management of media units, especially of those who are commercially concerned, but politically engaged at the same time. In my securest consideration, it must be a good thing that a medium of mass communication tends to have as good a performer on the air as possible, thus making itself more attractive on the market, although the market is still (temporarily?) impotent. Well, getting ready for future successful leaps in business also counts, I would say. Quoting the great Uncle Joe, the cadres are key to everything.
As a matter of fact, the more movement within the journalistic powerhouse the better – this probably helps the accumulation of experience, and also creates agreeable conditions for healthy competition. The only thing I would refrain from in this healthy process is an overly vitriolic commentary on ‘takeover’ of a competitor’s talent. There is no takeover! We are all in a labor market within which every single participant has his or her own value and specific gravity, and we are all interested to sell ourselves for as much as possible at a given moment of our development. Actually, this is the only way to let talent be appreciated fairly enough to find its deserved niche in the highly competitive market, no matter how prolific or barren that market is.
Think about this: if we never try to play a real game on the grounds of real capitalism, we will always remain as unreal as we currently are. The exchange of talent within the media, although politically driven, is a fine beginning, which gives the impression that it is not only the newly acquired European visa liberalization but also the latent preparedness of this society to turn itself into a natural part of western social and political culture, and economic, too, for that matter. Hopefully, this all adds up and makes sense. What remains now is to avoid blunders as wisely as possible, for our recent history persistently reminds us that every error made on the way of our capitalistic and democratic development costs us more than we can afford. Are we not smart enough not to let the mistakes shut us out from what seems to be our better prospects?
Nugzar B. Ruhadze