Al-Mamlaka (which means “the kingdom” in Arabic) is a television broadcaster that was established by the Jordanian state and launched operations in 2018.
Media assets
Television: Al-Mamlaka
State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)
Ownership and governance
Al-Mamlaka was established through a 2015 bylaw. According to provisions in a 2018 Royal Decree, Fahed Khitan, a columnist for the newspaper Al Ghad and former editor-in-chief of Al Arab Al Yawm Arabic daily, was named chairman of the station. The bylaw also instituted a board of four members, three of whom are politicians. The board and chair are appointed for three years, with the possibility of renewal, upon a recommendation from the Prime Minister.
Source of funding and budget
The government allocated a yearly budget of JOD 10m (US$ 14m) for a period of two years to fund the channel. The station’s budget in 2020 was slashed to JOD 9m, all coming from the government. There is no more recent data publicly available about the station’s budget.
Editorial independence
Al-Mamlaka has replaced plans by the government to launch a third channel at JRTV. Equipped with modern technology, Al-Mamlaka was designed as an all-news channel to offer public service broadcasting programs. The government’s goal was to create a station able to compete with pan-Arabic stations like Al JAzeera. Although in its first years in operation, there was no evidence that Al-Mamlaka would be editorially controlled by the government, as of 2021, the station seems to be more closely following the government’s line. The station failed to cover both the King’s conflict with a former Crown prince as well as the Pandora Papers, an investigation conducted by a global network of journalists that revealed details about the real estate holdings owned by Jordan’s King Abdullah II abroad.
Al-Mamlaka doesn’t have a statute that establishes its editorial independence.
No independent assessment or oversight mechanism to validate the editorial independence of Al-Mamlaka has been identified.
August 2023