"It is unbelievable how our viewers are responding to our satellite launch," said Executive Director of Horizon T Bianca Manoukian. We started our special programming at 7 AM on Thursday–and by 9:30 AM we had at least a couple of dozen phone calls from our compatriots in New York–Maryland–Rhode Island–Virginia–Arizona–and even vicinities of Los Angeles where residents had previously not been able to get Horizon through their local cable company–but owned the Globecast receiver boxes–and accidentally discovered us whole flipping the channels. They called excited–tearful–happy–surprised. . . But I guess we were the ones who were really surprised. It made us realize how far we reach and the fact something our Glendale residents take for granted–24 hours of Armenian programming–is a treasure discovered by others who have a thirst for anything Armenian."
During Horizon TV’s 18 hour live broadcast–Manoug Seraydarian–Alice Petrossian–Saro Nazarian–and Rita Sharoyan–Horizon’s Special correspondent from Armenia–hosted the show that included coverage from thirty two community events in Los Angeles in commemoration of the 88th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide–where volunteers Hourig Fournouzian and Michel Shahinian were on the field providing minute to minute coverage of the "Day’ s events"
When asked about what event in particular can be considered "the most important event" of the commemorative event series– Manoukian replied: "It all depends how you look at the issues; for instance–we had a protest-march and program organized by the United Genocide Commemorative Committee; over a thousand attended–and many high ranking public officials spoke; there was the Glendale Civic Auditorium event during which California Governor Gray Davis presented a resolution to the Mayor of the City of Glendale–recognizing the Genocide; there was also the protest march in front of the Turkish consulate–where again thousands–4,000 mainly youth gathered–but the most significant event must be the AYF organized hunger strike that came to show us all–one more time–that we are through with shedding tears and mourning our loss. April 24th has to be a day where each and everyone renews the vow to continue our struggle in whatever way possible. And it was with the same spirit that we concluded our programming with the movie Assignment Berlin–the story of Soghomon Tehlirian’s case. We closed our program in memory of all Operation Nemesis members," said Manoukian
