The former President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, controls a group of media outlets via various companies and his own private foundation. The most prominent of them are the television stations KTK and NTK, Radio Retro and the newspaper Karavan.
Media assets
Radio: Radio Retro
Publishing: Karavan
State Media Matrix Typology: Captured Private (CaPr)
Ownership and governance
Former President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, continues to exert significant power in the country’s media. He resigned in March 2019, claiming that he wanted to release power to another president. However, he has retained to this day numerous powers, continuing to exert decisive influence in ruling the country. He also owns a spate of news media through various entities or family members.
The media are controlled by him as follows: KTK and the newspaper Karavan via the private foundation known as the Foundation of the First President of Kazakhstan-Elbasy; NTK via a member family; Radio Retro via a Nazarbayev-owned company known as Europa Plus Kazakhstan.
Source of funding and budget
According to local experts consulted by the Media and Journalism Research Center, the media outlets controlled by the former President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, have been reliant on significant subsidies from the state budget. It is not known, however, now whether more than 50% of the outlets’ budgets come from state funding allocations.
Editorial independence
All the media controlled by Nazarbayev are known to be propaganda channels for the government of Kazakhstan, which Nazarbayev continues to fully control.
There is no domestic statute and no independent assessment or oversight mechanism in place at the media run by the former President used to validate the editorial independence of these outlets.
September 2023