Prominent TV Host Fired After Throwing Shade at Ruling Party

Petros Ghazaryan (right), a prominent political commentator and anchor of Kentron TV’s Urvagits program, has been fired from the channel, Zhamanak newspaper writes, citing own sources.

“Although Ghazaryan had written the day before on his Facebook page that he was on vacation, our sources tell us that he will not return to his job. He has been personally taken care of by [Armenian president] Serzh Sargsyan.” According to the paper, Ghazaryan will be replaced by former Shant TV and Public TV of Armenia political commentator Nver Mnatsakanyan (left).

Note, on December 14 Ghazaryan’s Urvagits hosted comedian Sergey Danielyan who has recently created a satirical political party called “Active Civil Step” (the abbreviation of which spells “shit” in Armenian). The episode, however, was subsequently removed from Kentron TV’s Youtube channel.

In the episode, Ghazaryan, a critic of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, had commented on Danielyan’s initiative, saying that Armenia did not actually need the comedian’s party for plundering the state budget since “there is already one main corrupt political party in the country. What’s the use for your party? [The plundering] is already being done quite nicely.”