However, over the course of the next few years Chkhartishvili sold all his shares in the company and it became the focus of concern for opposition politicians and independent commentators who suggested Mze was coming under pressure from the Georgian government for failing to keep in line politically.
[4] In January 2006 it was reported that Rustavi 2 (by this time wholly owned by a close ally of the then Georgian defence minister) bought 78% of shares in Mze, the remaining 22% being retained by Bezhaushvili via his company SakCementi.
But the same report also said that On the Edge of Choice had been temporarily cancelled earlier that year after experts invited on to the programme failed to corroborate the official explanation for the death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania.
The government denied any connection with the cancellation.’[9] In its 2007 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Georgia the State Department noted that, ‘Observers believed that some members of the government directed pro-government television stations, notably Rustavi-2 and Mze, to provide positive coverage of the government.’[10] The cancellation of On The Edge Of Choice was also recorded in Freedom House's 2006 report on freedom of the press in Georgia.
It discussed the unexpected February cancellation of Mze's ‘highly rated’ political talk show, ‘Night Mzera’ hosted by Inga Grigolia.
In the report the authors suggested that the ‘reorganisation’ of Mze, with news programmes being cancelled, might possibly be connected to the channel's live broadcast of a raid on a protest rally in Tbilisi's city centre.