Adjara TV and Radio Company (Adjara TV)

Adjara Television and Radio is the public-service broadcaster serving Georgia’s Autonomous Republic of Adjara, a Black Sea region bordering Turkey. Its full legal name is the Legal Entity under Public Law Public Broadcaster’s Adjara Television and Radio. It is legally separate from the Georgian Public Broadcaster, but since July 2023 the two broadcasters have shared GPB’s Board of Trustees as their governing board. Adjara Television and Radio operates one television channel and one radio channel.

Media assets

Television: Adjara TV

Radio: Radio Adjara

The broadcaster also distributes content online. Its own institutional description says it obtained public-broadcaster status on 25 December 2013 and operates across television, radio and internet platforms. The Law on Broadcasting expressly provides for one radio channel and television broadcasting through the digital terrestrial network. Adjara Television and Radio describes itself as publicly financed, accountable to society and formally independent of governmental, political, religious and commercial influence.

Ownership and governance

Adjara Television and Radio is a separate Legal Entity under Public Law established under Article 35¹ of Georgia’s Law on Broadcasting. It is not a corporate subsidiary or structural division of GPB.

Its governance changed fundamentally under Law No. 3461 of 3 July 2023. The amendments abolished the broadcaster’s five-member Council of Advisors and transferred its governing functions to GPB’s Board of Trustees. Articles 35⁴ to 35⁹, which had governed the Council, were repealed. Article 35³ now identifies two governing bodies: GPB’s Board of Trustees and Adjara Television and Radio’s director.

The Board has 11 members elected by Parliament: two nominated by the Public Defender, three by the parliamentary majority, three by the largest parliamentary opposition factions and three by the Supreme Council of Adjara. The three nominees from Adjara do not constitute a separate regional board; all eleven trustees exercise governance over the broadcaster.

The Board determines programme priorities; adopts and amends the broadcaster’s statute; approves its budget, budget amendments and execution reports; receives quarterly operational and financial reports; approves transactions exceeding 1 per cent of the budget; and determines staffing, salaries and the director’s remuneration. It also appoints the director through open competition for a three-year term and may dismiss the director under the statutory no-confidence procedure.

Irakli Kikvadze was appointed director on 29 January 2026. Eight of the eleven trustees attended the vote, with seven supporting his candidacy and one voting against.

Earlier material referring to an active Council of Advisors is historical. The reported ballot involving Maia Merkviladze, Piruz Bolkvadze and Giorgi Kokhreidze occurred in November 2019. Although the first ballot was inconclusive, Kokhreidze won the second ballot on the same day.

Source of funding and budget

Adjara Television and Radio is financed through a statutory share of GPB’s public funding. Article 35¹² of the Law on Broadcasting provides that 21 per cent of the GPB budget is transferred to Adjara Television and Radio’s separate account after approval. The broadcaster’s director submits its proposed budget, which GPB’s Board reconciles with GPB’s proposal before approving both budgets.

The share increased in stages: 16 per cent in 2024, 17 per cent in 2025 and 21 per cent from 1 January 2026.

The initial 2026 budget approved by the Board in December 2025 was GEL 22.7753 million, including GEL 20.9312 million in state appropriation, approximately 91.9 per cent of the total. GPB’s own budget was reported separately at GEL 114.4524 million, including GEL 80.2698 million in state appropriation. These figures should not be combined and described as a single institutional budget. The Board’s approval decision and the published budget breakdown support the figures.

Editorial independence

The formal framework contains substantial editorial safeguards. Article 35¹ applies the public-service obligations in Article 16 of the Law on Broadcasting to Adjara Television and Radio. These include editorial independence, fairness, impartiality, freedom from governmental, political, religious and commercial influence, pluralism and comprehensive public-interest coverage.

The broadcaster’s own institutional statement invokes the same principles and identifies a self-regulatory mechanism for enforcing its Code of Conduct.

In practice, Adjara Television and Radio historically enjoyed a reputation for greater pluralism than many Georgian broadcasters, including by providing airtime to opposition voices. That record came under sustained political pressure. Director Natia Kapanadze’s dismissal in April 2019 prompted domestic and international condemnation, while journalists subsequently reported interference, harassment, dismissal and reassignment connected with politically inconvenient coverage. These events are documented in Transparency International Georgia’s chronology.

The abolition of the Council of Advisors in 2023 removed the broadcaster’s separate regional governance layer and placed its statute, budget, staffing and leadership under GPB’s Parliament-elected Board. The Board is chaired by Vasil Maglaperidze, who briefly served as a deputy chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party in 2021.

State Media Monitor did not conduct content analysis of Adjara Television and Radio during this update. The editorial finding therefore rests on documented governance changes and the historical record of pressure rather than on a current quantitative study of programming.

AI and digital policy

State Media Monitor could not identify a published Adjara Television and Radio policy governing generative artificial intelligence, mandatory human verification, model provenance or audience disclosure, and could not establish the extent of AI adoption in production.

GPB has published plans for artificial-intelligence use in areas including audience analysis, distribution, archive digitisation and disinformation detection. Adjara Television and Radio is a separate legal entity, however, and State Media Monitor identified no decision or policy extending GPB’s strategy to it.

Classification rationale

Adjara Television and Radio remains classified State-Controlled Media (SC).

It is publicly owned and state-governed. The broadcaster is a statutory Legal Entity under Public Law. Since July 2023, its governing board has been GPB’s eleven-member Board of Trustees, elected by Parliament. The Board controls programme priorities, the institutional statute, budget, staffing and senior leadership. The former Council of Advisors no longer exists.

It is predominantly state-funded. The law assigns it 21 per cent of GPB’s public funding. Its initially approved 2026 budget was GEL 22.7753 million, of which GEL 20.9312 million, approximately 91.9 per cent, was state appropriation.

Its formal editorial safeguards do not provide structural independence from the governing board. Statutory duties of editorial independence, impartiality and pluralism apply, and the broadcaster has a Code of Conduct and self-regulatory mechanism. Against those safeguards stand the documented dismissal of an independent director, subsequent allegations of pressure on journalists and the 2023 removal of its distinct regional governing body. No current content analysis was conducted.

September 2026