Media Development Agency aims to take control of the Internet

Baku/02.07.21/Turan: The recipients of financial assistance from the Media Development Agency, as always, were pro-government newspapers and online resources. Lawyer and media expert Khalid Agaliyev commented on the reason for this, as well as other problems of the domestic media in the "Difficult Question" program of Turan news agency.

Before talking about the reasons for the government's allocation of funds to the media, Agaliyev turned to international experience. There are enough facts in the world practice when the state TV, radio and newspapers are partially financed from the budget. In the USA, for example, Public Television can receive funds from the budget, and similar practice is in some European countries.

 This is done in order to provide people of a certain category (young people, for example) with information. They are given the opportunity of their own choice to subscribe to some kind of publication, and the state takes upon itself the subscription fee. In this case, the reader himself decides who will receive the budget funds.

In 2008, when the issue of providing state support to the media was actualized, the concept "On state support for the development of the media" was adopted. It states that financial support is provided "with the aim of strengthening the material and technical base of the media, modernizing their infrastructure, strengthening economic independence, financing programs, projects and measures aimed at solving problems important for the state and society."

Thirteen years have passed since the adoption of this concept.  This is a sufficient period to strengthen the material and technical base of the media and economic independence, but this result was never achieved.

The expert believes that the state had no choice but to support the pro-government media. “The state almost completely controls the media space. Resources outside government control can be counted on one hand. In order for the pro-government media not to cease to exist, the government is forced to subsidize them,” he said.

Referring to the possibility of the existence of independent media in Azerbaijan, Agaliyev noted the need for the existence of an advertising market. It is impossible to form an advertising market in 2-3 years; 70% of advertising funds come from small and medium businesses. However, the state of business in Azerbaijan is well known.

Agaliev believes that the recently created Media Development Agency does not differ from the recently liquidated State Support Fund for Media Development.

The purpose of creating this structure is to turn all independent media outlets into pro-government ones, the expert said.

According to Agaliev, over the past 12 years, significant changes have taken place in the media space, which is largely associated with the development of the Internet. At present, the main source of information in Azerbaijan is the Internet, whose audience is larger than that of all TV channels and newspapers.

“Naturally, the government takes this into account and it is obvious that the emergence of the Media Development Agency on the arena is aimed at taking control of the Internet, just as the Foundation took control of traditional media in its time. Now the government, using this experience, will invest in the Internet,” the expert concluded. -0-