TIRANA, March 13 – A regional investigation on media ownership in Albania reported the biggest part of Albanian news outlets were owned by four big families with strong political ties.
According to the monitoring results, “four big owners in the television segment, the Frangaj family, the Hoxha family, the Dulaku family and the Ndroqi family cover half of the audience – from 49 to 58 percent).
The five major digital transmissions licenses are owned by three of these owners, one of which has three of them.
The four owners own almost two thirds of the radio audience (approximately 64 percent), and only in the printed media is the concentration of ownership more moderate, as the four owners have a combined readership of 43,29 percent.
In this context, the investigation highlights the Albanian media market is in fact small and that although the big number of media outlets suggests a variety of information, “financial data shows the lion share of income is concentrated in the hands of a few media groups which families own.”
Moreover, the investigation proceeds, regulatory legal framework concerning media ownership is non-existent.
Although the audiovisual media market is law regulated, the majority of media scholars and experts perceive its regulative body – the Authority of Audiovisual Media – to be under the direct or indirect influence of political actors and cooperation.
The investigation’s grim conclusions is that due to political and economic pressures, Albanian journalists have to censor themselves to fit their owners interests.
An additional important part of the conclusion also explored Prime Minister Edi Rama’s relationship with local media, describing it as “denigrating in Rama’s rhetoric during the last years accompanied with a growth in his social media communication that enables Rama to avoid journalists’ questions.”
According to many analysts, there are moves leading to the “delegitimation of an increasingly smaller group media outlets and critical journalists who are not directly controlled by oligarchs and indirectly by Rama, President Ilir Meta, former Prime Minister Sali Berisha and their clients.”
