About H2 (Armenia 2)

H2 (Armenia 2)

H2, also known as Armenia 2 or the Second Armenian TV Channel, is a private television company based in the Ajapnyak district of Yerevan, Armenia, broadcasting in Armenian. It was created in 1999, when the privately run Armenia 2 replaced the public Nork channel, which had closed in 1998. For many years it was one of the private television companies with the largest coverage in Armenia, reaching approximately 95 per cent of viewers and broadcasting 18 hours a day. On 15 January 2021 the Television and Radio Commission removed its terrestrial coverage in the allocation of slots for the digital terrestrial network, and since then H2 has broadcast only via cable television and online. This profile traces the channel's origins in the Soviet second programme, its years as a national broadcaster, its ownership, its programming and the licensing dispute that took it off terrestrial air — a dispute H2 challenged in court as invalid and politically motivated.

Origins: The Second Programme and Nork

The frequencies that later carried Armenia 2 were first given to the state television company under Soviet control. In 1973 an article in the Armenian SSR media publication Yerevan is On Air introduced the new second channel under the title Turn on channel 11 on the TV. The channel upgraded to colour in 1978. For most of the Soviet period it operated as the second programme of Armenian television — recorded in public television histories as the Second Program from 1973 to 1991 and the Second Channel from 1991 to 1996.

From Second Channel to Nork

In 1996 the second channel separated from the first and became a channel in its own right under new management and the name Nork, directed by Robert Mavisakalyan. Within a short period Nork attracted the attention of the bulk of the audience, according to the Public Television Company's own history. Nork closed in 1998. Its closure created the vacancy that a private company would fill: the second national channel position, with its frequencies, its staff tradition and its audience habit, passed out of public hands for the first time.

Creation of Armenia 2 in 1999

The new owners absorbed the staff of the former service. The company was founded in 1999 under the name Prometheus — the Media Ownership Monitor records that H2 was founded in 1999 under the name Prometheus and that Second Armenian TV Channel LLC was registered in the State Register of Legal Entities in 2000 under the name Prometheus TV Editorial LLC, later renamed. The channel launched on 10 May 1999, replacing Nork. Its broadcasts started in 1999 on cable and terrestrially in 2001, and the television company received a licence for nationwide broadcasting in 2001. From 2004 it began broadcasting as H2, and the company was renamed Second Armenian TV Channel LLC.

The resulting channel, Armenia 2, was a genuinely national private service. Approximately 95 per cent of television viewers in Armenia were able to watch it, it broadcast 18 hours daily, and the company employed 250 people. Its offices and studios are located in the Ajapnyak district of Yerevan. Its picture formats are listed as 4:3 SDTV and 16:9 HDTV, and it broadcasts in Armenian.

Ownership and Management

Second Armenian TV Channel LLC has two shareholders: Samvel Mayrapetyan holds 50 per cent and Natalia Matinyan — Natalya Matinyan in some records — holds 50 per cent. The shareholding dates from 2003 in the Media Ownership Monitor's company record. Mayrapetyan serves as president and director of the television channel. He is known for the construction of elite buildings in Yerevan and is considered a close associate of former President Robert Kocharyan and former Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan.

Mayrapetyan's legal position is a documented part of the channel's recent history and is recorded here as reported by the Monitor. In October 2018 he was arrested after a businessperson declared she had given him money to transfer to senior figures; he remained in detention until December 2019, was released on bail, received permission for medical treatment in Germany, and on 3 March 2020 failed to appear before the Investigative Committee and was declared wanted. The Monitor records that he is currently wanted by law enforcement and involved in several criminal cases related to bribery allegations. These are allegations and procedural facts as documented by an independent monitoring source; this profile reports them as such and makes no finding on their merits. The company's registered activities, according to its charter and tax records, include production of video content, dubbing of programmes and films, and preparation and broadcasting of advertisements and announcements, and it is classified as a commercial organisation founded for profit.

Programming and Partnerships

H2 broadcasts entertainment, series and news programming in Armenian. Its news block is called Lraber, meaning Herald — the same historic title used by the public channel's news — and it maintains its own reporters throughout Armenia. Its international overview is carried out based on the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle's television channel, and H2 also cooperates with the Russian channels Russia-1 and NTV and with other foreign channels. That partnership structure — domestic reporting of its own, German-sourced international coverage and Russian channel cooperation — reflects the practical economics of a mid-sized national channel: original Armenian production where it matters most to the audience, and partner material for international breadth.

In audience surveys H2 is listed as Armenia 2 alongside Armenia 1, Armenia TV and Shant, and in the Caucasus Barometer 2024 television trust survey it appears among the stations respondents could name. After the change of government in 2018, the Media Ownership Monitor records, H2 adopted an opposition editorial stance — a positioning that frames the licensing conflict that followed.

Loss of the Terrestrial Licence in 2021

On 15 January 2021, per a decision of the Television and Radio Commission during the attribution of slots for the digital terrestrial network, H2 was stripped of its terrestrial coverage, on the basis that the channel did not have the rights to operate at national level and was limited to cable. The Media Ownership Monitor's account adds essential context: although the channel's evaluation scores were sufficient to win a slot for capital-city broadcasting, it was removed from the air because it had applied only to the nationwide broadcasting competition. The number of nationwide slots had been reduced from six to five because, as a result of an interstate agreement, one slot was allocated to a Russian channel.

Court Challenges and the Annulled Competition

H2 sued the commission, claiming the decision was invalid because the number of slots had been reduced after the competition was announced. The litigation then shaped the entire licensing system. In June 2021 H2 participated in the competition for a capital-city slot but lost to the newly launched channel of the Public Television Company; its lawsuit over that result was satisfied in the Administrative Court and the Administrative Court of Appeals, and the commission's cassation appeal was rejected on 7 June in the year recorded by the Monitor. In July 2021 the commission announced a new capital competition; H2 lost again and challenged again. In 2022 the court declared the January 2021 nationwide competition invalid. The commission announced a new nationwide competition for four slots — one slot frozen because H2 was separately demanding to be recognised as winner of the previous competition — and in that process, concluded in December 2022, four of six participating companies won licences while the opposition channels Yerkir Media and H2 did not receive broadcasting licences. H2's management maintains that the decision to remove the channel from terrestrial broadcasting is politically motivated. The channel currently broadcasts only via cable networks and online, and the Monitor notes that despite losing its terrestrial licence it maintains considerable reach through major cable network operators.

Distribution Today

H2's current distribution is cable and online, through its official website at tv.am. Its terrestrial listing is historical: digital terrestrial position varied by location before 2021. Reference listings also record a broadcast area extending to the United States, reflecting diaspora carriage of the channel's signal. The practical consequence of the 2021 decision is that a channel which once reached about 95 per cent of Armenian viewers free-to-air now reaches viewers who subscribe to cable packages or who watch online — a smaller, self-selecting audience, but one the company has continued to serve without interruption since the terrestrial switch-off.

Place in Armenian Media

H2's significance is twofold. Historically, it completed the privatisation of Armenia's second channel: the Soviet second programme became Nork in 1996, closed in 1998 and was reborn in 1999 as a private company that kept the former service's staff and built a 250-person national broadcaster reaching almost the whole country. Institutionally, its case became the central legal dispute of Armenia's digital licensing era: one channel's challenge annulled a national competition, froze a multiplex slot, forced repeat competitions and raised — in the channel's own account and in independent monitoring — the question of whether licensing outcomes for opposition-leaning channels are decided on scores or on politics.

The verified core of the H2 record is clear: founded 1999 as Prometheus, launched 10 May 1999 replacing Nork, nationwide from 2001, branded H2 from 2004, owned equally by Samvel Mayrapetyan and Natalia Matinyan, based in Ajapnyak, Yerevan, with the Lraber news service and Deutsche Welle, Russia-1 and NTV partnerships, and confined to cable and online distribution since the terrestrial decision of 15 January 2021. Where accounts differ — in the spelling of shareholders' names and in the interpretation of the licensing decisions — this profile has said so, and it presents the channel's political-motivation claim as the channel's claim, recorded by independent monitors, alongside the regulator's stated procedural grounds.