Transparency International Georgia publishes a traditional report on TV advertising market review. In 2021, COVID-19 remained a major challenge for the advertising market, and subsequent pandemic restrictions significantly affected the economy. 

Analyzing advertising revenues and identifying tendencies are very important for scrutinizing problems in media, developing respective recommendations, and overcoming challenges. The report covers all private TV companies and the public broadcaster and is based on open source information, FOI requests, and interviews with field specialists.

Findings:

• In 2021, compared to 2020, the TV advertising marketincreased by 7.8 million GEL (10.4%) and amounted to 83.1 million GEL.
• In 2021, the Imedi Holding traditionally received the most advertising. In 2021, Its revenue amounted to 31.1 million GEL (37.4% of the advertising market). Mtavari Arkhi replaced TV Rustavi-2 in the second place with 11.9 million GEL revenue (14.3% of the advertising market).
• In recent years, the former leading TV company Rustavi-2 experienced the largest decrease in advertising revenue which coincided with the change of the owner. In 2021, compared to 2018, Rustavi-2’s advertising revenue shrank by 19.3 million GEL (63.4%) and amounted to 11.1 million GEL. Moreover, in contrast to 2020, the revenue of Rustavi-2 decreased by 1.7 million GEL (13.1%). 
• The total revenue private TV companies increased by 1.3 million GEL (1%), to 139.8 million GEL. 
• As for the total revenues, "Formula" holds the first place among the private TV companies with 37.5 million GEL, of which 31.6 million GEL is a "non-broadcasting revenue", the amount taken as a loan from its owner, Davit Kezerashvili.
• None of the 5 top-grossing TV stations made a profit in 2020. The "Imedi" TV company suffered the biggest loss, 74.5 million GEL.
• In 2021, the Georgian Public Broadcaster received 2.4 million GEL revenue from advertising and that is 1.4 million GEL more than the previous year.