Georgia: Action-Packed Drama Paralyzes Anti-Government Maestro TV

Media takeovers happen every day, but rarely do they come with scenes straight out of an action thriller. But that's the drama now engulfing Maestro TV, Georgia's main anti-government television channel.

In a feat few media executives could achieve, Erosi Kitsmarishvili, the portly, middle-aged head of Maestro TV’s managing company and Georgia's onetime ambassador to Russia, put his mountaineering skills to good use early on November 30, and climbed over the fence of the Tbilisi-based station with a posse of men. Mission unknown.

The group then locked themselves into Maestro's premises. Spotting the intrusion, the channel’s morning-shift reporters responded by locking themselves into the control room.

"Why?" you might ask. Keep asking. No one appears to know. (Including why Kitsmarishvili could not simply walk through the front door.)

A tense stand-off ensued. Hunkered down, Kitsmarishvili fired the station's executive producer/co-owner/founder Mamuka Ghlonti and other senior management. Ghlonti, in turn, rescinded Maestro's contract with Kitsmarishvili's managing firm.

And so the matter stands. The fence-hopping Kitsmarishvili and men refuse to let the company’s owners into their section of the station, and, over in the control room, Maestro reporters and Ghlonti are not letting Kitsmarishvili inside their camp, either. “We are keeping the doors locked,” Ghlonti told EurasiaNet.org. “He [Kitsmarishvili] is there with some 15 men, but he is not going to get in here.”

The non-governmental organization Coalition for Media Advocacy* is trying to get the two sides to sit down and talk, and to get all of the station's regular programming back on the air. So far, without success.

Police, who arrived at the station after Ghlonti phoned for help, are maintaining a vigil at Maestro's entranceway, but have refrained from evicting either man. Journalists and politicians are taking turns to show up at the station and display support for Maestro’s staff.

As ever in Georgian media fights, politics has a supporting role in the drama. The gadfly TV station, with an opposition-friendly ownership structure, is known for its documentaries critical of the government, and its kitchen-chat-style interviews with figures critical of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Among them billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who earlier had offered to take over Maestro, and who gave a lengthy interview to the station (mostly about his enjoyment of studying psychology and spending time with psychoanalysts) the day before Kitsmarishvili's climbing act.

Ivanishvili openly criticized the station manager as an unreliable political player, an assessment which reportedly did not sit well with Kitsmarishvili. But was it enough to prompt him to storm Maestro?

Whatever the case, the conspiracy theorists have gotten quickly to work, claiming that the government has a hand in the debacle.

Such a twist, though, is a bit much to digest. Yes, Kitsmarishvili once ran national broadcaster Rustavi2 and, like many others, was once a Saakashvili pal, but has since adopted decidedly opposition views. Along with disgraced ex-Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, he leads the opposition Georgian Party. Not exactly a natural government errand boy.

Given that no one involved in the Maestro maelstrom can so far give a sound explanation of what on earth is going on there, perhaps Ivanishvili’s psychoanalyst friends can help?

(This blog post was corrected to reflect that some of Maestro TV's programming remains on the air. The Open Society Georgia Foundation, part of the Soros Foundations network, is a member of the Coalition for Media Advocacy group. EurasiaNet.org operates under the auspices of the Open Society Institute, a separate part of the Soros Foundations network.)