Walking down the street, you probably would not notice the Boon TV’s newsroom office. Yet in this small house on the outskirts of Yerevan, you will find professional television studios and a team of determined journalists.
“Our mission is to contribute to a rational society, to broaden people’s horizons and help them make informed decision,” says the co-founder and Executive Director Gemafin Gasparyan. In Armenian, ‘Boon’ translates to ‘home’ or ‘essence’. This reflects the original aim of the editorial team: to cultivate the public debate and foster a pluralistic society.
Gemafin Gasparyan, Executive director of Boon TV.
This mission has been largely successful. Even though Boon was never a traditional TV channel, it has managed to compete with established television broadcasters and has increasingly grown its audiences, amassing over 8 million views just on YouTube.
Together with journalist Kristine Armenakyan, they founded the platform operating today’s Boon TV, the Scientific and Cultural Foundation, in 2013. Back then, the political situation around presidential elections was tense. Serzh Sargsyan, former president, was re-elected amidst accusations of corruption and fraud, while another presidential candidate, Paruyr Hayrikyan, had survived an assassination attempt. For years, Armenia has been described as a hybrid autocracy, ruled by corrupt oligarchs.
During those times, Kristine and Gemafin were in the streets, protesting against corruption and electoral fraud. “While in protests, we realised we need to make a change. We wanted to create a space for rational political debate and better understanding of democratic values,” says Gemafin, reflecting on the organisation’s beginnings. What they lacked in equipment, they had in passion. Starting as an NGO, they gradually built a popular channel on YouTube, providing a platform for civil society to engage in public discourse and highlight important issues in the country.
“After the Nagorno Karabakh war, we realised that we need a change of strategy. While we had aimed mostly at decision-makers before, we decided to target all layers of Armenian society,” points out the director. In 2021, Boon TV made the decision to become a television station and applied for a public broadcasting license.
The Prague Centre helped Boon during this transition stage through covering the associated costs. “This support was essential, as 24-hour television broadcasting and YouTube media have very different financial and technical requirements,” Gemafin points out. The Centre’s institutional support of Boon TV continued after the start of the full-scale broadcasting in 2023.
From the start, Boon TV has had two main focuses: science and art. The content offered to Boon viewers nowadays is very diverse, covering socio-political topics, public policies, and current affairs in Armenian society. “We want to offer sources for self-education,” Gemafin continues, listing the broad variety of shows: expert debates, series on fake news and media literacy, documentaries about topics like male emancipation in patriarchal society or marginalised regional communities.
The channel also offers two hours of children programming daily, focused on civic education. “In Armenia, there is a lot of content for children in Russian, but very little in Armenian,” Gemafin explains. Besides the 24/7 television broadcast, Boon TV also produces a daily radio show and various podcasts.
Since 2021, Boon TV has produced more than 5,000 programs in various formats and cooperated with hundreds of scientists, researchers and artists. “We call them the ‘Boon people’ – they are part of a community that we’ve built over the years,” the director concludes.
