Dogus Holding is one of the largest conglomerates in Turkey with investments in a spate of industries ranging from construction to real estate and tourism, energy, food and beverage production and retail. The company also runs a media portfolio consisting of three television stations (NTV, Star and Eurostar), three radio channels and an online video platform. The company also owns the local franchises for international magazines such as National Geographic and Vogue.
Media assets
Television: NTV, Star TV, Eurostar, TV8
Radio: NTV Radyo, Kral Muzik, Kral FM, Kral Pop Radio,
News portal: PuhuTV
State Media Matrix Typology: Captured Private (CaPr)
Ownership and governance
Dogus Holding is owned by the family of Ayhan Şahenk, the businessman who founded the group back in 1951. At the beginning, the company was focused on construction. Ayhan Şahenk died in 2001. His wife along with two of their children now control some 80% of the shares in the group. Some of the remaining shares are publicly floated.
Source of funding and budget
The company’s media are funded primarily through advertising. According to the company’s latest available report, issued in 2019, the media arm of the group was profitable. Like other conglomerates owned by oligarchs close to the government, Dogus Holding also benefits from large public orders in lucrative fields such as construction and real estate, according to local journalists and experts.
Editorial independence
As a way to protect its business in the non-media field as well as to ensure its access to large government contracts, Dogus Holding is known to have adopted a pro-government agenda in its media coverage with a history going back to the early 2010s when, as other oligarch-owned media, its outlets refrained completely from airing news about critics of the government (they for example did not air any news reports about a wave of massive anti-government demonstrations in 2013).
Reports from RSF indicate that the editors at Dogus Media’s outlets have a close relation with government officials close to Erdoğan and always follow editorial-related requests from the government.
Although some reports from 2019 indicated that Dogus group was likely to change sides and start criticizing the government (as it plans to support a group of politicians who want to challenge the Erdoğan regime) there is no indication to date that the editorial line of Dogus’ media has changed thus far, according to local journalists and experts.
There is no statue and no independent assessment/oversight mechanism that would validate the independence of the Dogus’ media outlets.
October 2023