Ciner Media Group is part of Ciner Yayın Holding, owned by the entrepreneur Turgay Ciner who entered the media business in 2009 when he acquired Habertürk, a daily newspaper. Later on, he enlarged his media business by buying more outlets. The group now owns three television channels and several news portals. In 2018, it ended the print edition of Habertürk because of financial problems, the company’s representatives explained. Some of the newspaper’s work has been continued on the portal Haberturk.com.
Media assets
Television: Show TV, Show Turk, Show Max, Haberturk TV
Radio: Bloomberg HT Radyo
State Media Matrix Typology: Captured Private (CaPr)
Ownership and governance
Ciner Yayın Holding is fully owned by Turgay Ciner, a Turkish oligarch known for his close ties with the President Erdoğan. He owns his media outlets through a thicket of individual companies that all lead to him. Ciner also has businesses in many other industries, including energy and mining.
Source of funding and budget
The group Ciner does not publish information about the financial performance of its outlets. Although the company receives massive amounts of money through public orders issued and paid for by the government for work in non-media industries (construction and mining in particular) as well as funding through state advertising, local journalists can’t estimate whether this source of funding represents more than 50% of the media arm’s budget. Ciner’s media outlets also generate substantial revenues through ad sales, according to local journalists and activists.
Editorial independence
The media owned by Ciner are known as promoters of the President Erdoğan. Ciner has never hidden his appreciation for the President whom he meets regularly. Not only does his media praise the government, but the group’s other businesses regularly thank the President for his cooperation. The relationship between Ciner and Erdoğan is so close that at some point Ciner named a stadium he owns after the President.
There is no statute and no independent assessment/oversight mechanism that would validate the editorial independence of Ciner’s media outlets.
October 2023