Industry professionals are split on whether celebrity TV journalist Inga Grigolia’s new show, “Prime Time,” will be the prime of her career.

After a brief spell off-air, Grigolia anchored the first edition of her new political talk show Monday night on Rustavi 2—the rival to her previous home station, Imedi TV, which she controversially left while it was shut down by the government.

Grigolia and a few other journalists announced their decision to bid farewell to the Imedi premises, then sealed off by police, last month. Given Grigolia’s popularity, her reasoning for leaving the embattled network was hotly awaited by the public.

Grigolia, who was in Imedi’s offices when it was raided and ransacked by special forces officers on November 7, told Rustavi 2’s “PS” she would have been overcome with emotion if she tried to go back into those studios. But there was another important factor in her choice to leave the network, she explained.

“I would have never left Imedi if its owner, Badri Patarktsishvili, hadn’t announced his candidacy for the president of Georgia,” she told “PS” on Saturday.

Patarkatsishvili, founder of the Imedi media group and now a presidential candidate, says he has sold all management rights for the station to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, a co-owner in the business.

Authorities say Patarkatsishvili was attempting to use Imedi to bring down the government; he is wanted for questioning for his role in the alleged coup attempt on November 7, but is expected to have immunity as a presidential candidate when he returns to the country this week.

Grigolia responded to talk of her “betrayal” of Imedi by insisting she didn’t leave Imedi for its rival network, Rustavi 2. Instead, she said, she is working with the independent production company TBC.

Grigolia declined to comment to the Messenger about the premier of her new show.

“I have read such things in the local press that I have decided not to comment on this,” she stated, assuring this journalist that it was nothing personal.

Levan Kubaneishvili, one of the two founders of TBC, had more to say.

“The program turned out to be a success, I’m pretty content with [the premier],” Kubaneishvili said on Tuesday.

He estimated that 70 percent of the country tuned in to “Prime Time’s” premier, with some 10 000 viewers sending in SMS messages.

The TBC co-founder, with years of experience in the field, declared that “Prime Time’s” lengthy, extensive format was “something new.”

TBC produces a large variety of print and television advertising and programs.

With concerns of “collegiality” preventing most journalists from speaking on the record about Grigolia’s “Prime Time,” the Messenger grabbed what few opportunities it could to get evaluations of the new political talk show from people in the business.

“I [normally] wouldn’t allow myself to evaluate any of my colleagues, but I’m agreeing due to my great respect towards such a professional journalist as Inga Grigolia,” journalist Irakli Mamaladze, of the daily newspaper Alia, commented.

“I’ve seen Grigolia work in the studio and…my impression in the first part of the program was that she seemed a bit confused…[but] from the second block onward throughout the program, the constraint disappeared and she felt quite at home,” Mamaladze said.

But Mamaladze disagreed with TBC insistences that the new program would be every bit as confrontational and critical as Grigolia’s previous shows on Imedi. “Prime Time” was relatively soft, Mamaladze said, and no revelations were unearthed on the events of November 7 despite the show’s focus on that day.

The high ratings, he said, were due to Grigolia’s personality.

“Inga [Grigolia], being a very good professional in her craft, has gained a lot of trust from the people, and she must live up to that trust by managing to stay free in any studio,” Mamaladze commented.

Rustavi 2 is widely viewed as the more pro-government of the television networks, and is thought to be owned by figures with ties to state officials.

Nino Jangirashvili, news director for Kavkasia TV, a small pro-opposition broadcaster, said Grigolia’s most recent debut was nothing to be excited about.

“As for its high rating, that was due to public interest in what [the show] would be like, and what Grigolia would offer [in explanation for] her departure from Imedi,” she told the Messenger.

The Kavkasia director had more to say about the ethics of Grigolia’s decision to walk out on Imedi than about her new talk show.

“It’s impossible to talk of this show apart from the general context of the recent Imedi-related developments,” she said. Proving unusually eager to violate the rules of “collegiality,” Jangirashvili leapt on the journalists who decided to find other homes when Imedi was behind a police cordon.

“I think those journalists who left Imedi while it was still shut down, made a mean, selfish decision out of a search for personal comfort,” she said. “Had they done it after Imedi was reopened, it would have been okay.”

Jangirashvili stressed that the crackdown on Imedi was more than just one station’s problem, but a serious threat to freedom of speech and expression in Georgia.

Grigolia, she concluded, had failed in her professional duties to protect the freedom of the media when it most needed her help.

“I wish her great success in her private life,” Jangirashvili said, “but in terms of Georgian journalism and civic society, Grigolia no longer exists for me.”

Rather than focusing on personal points of contention, Alia’s Mamaladze said he was surprised that authorities decided to let top ruling party MP Givi Targamadze and Eka Kherkheulidze, a member of Adjara’s ruling administration now campaigning for the reelection of Mikheil Saakashvili, accept invitations to Grigolia’s show.

State officials had refused for months to appear on Imedi.

This point worries Jangirashvili of Kavkasia TV.

“The same people who didn’t go on Imedi now are ready to go on the same type of program, hosted by the same person… What has changed—the building? Maybe within the walls of Rustavi 2, government officials have more guarantees of protection [from criticism]?” Jangirashvili suggested.