Bahrain Radio and Television Corporation (BRTC)

The Bahrain Radio and Television Corporation (BRTC) is the Kingdom of Bahrain’s principal public broadcaster, established in 1971 and granted independent-body status in January 1993 while remaining under direct government control. BRTC operates Bahrain TV’s portfolio of Arabic and English-language television channels and Radio Bahrain’s portfolio of Arabic, English and Indian-language radio stations, and functions as the principal audiovisual channel of the Bahraini state.

Media assets

Television: Bahrain TV, Bahrain International, Quran Kareem, Bahrain Sport 1 and Bahrain Sport 2, among the main ministry-operated television services

Radio: Radio Bahrain (Arabic), Bahrain FM (Arabic), Bahrain Radio 96.5 (English) and Indian Radio (Indian languages), among the main Ministry of Information radio services

Ownership and governance

BRTC is wholly owned by the Government of Bahrain and operates under the executive authority of the Ministry of Information, the government body responsible for official media including Bahrain Television, Bahrain Radio and the Bahrain News Agency. Media regulation remains embedded in the executive-controlled information system; no independent media regulator capable of insulating BRTC from government control was identified during the 2025/26 review period.

The current Minister of Information is Dr Ramzan bin Abdulla Al Noaimi, appointed on 13 June 2022. The Minister of Information has cabinet rank and is appointed directly by the King of Bahrain. BRTC’s senior operational leadership, including the heads of Bahrain Radio Company and Bahrain Television Company, is appointed by royal decree. Omar Khalifa Shaheen, who had led Radio Bahrain Company as Chief Executive Officer for four years, announced his departure in August 2025; the SMM review did not identify a publicly confirmed successor by the close of the review period. BRTC has no independent governing board, no statutory editorial firewall, and no non-state appointment mechanism for its senior positions.

Insights from Bahraini media professionals and regional experts consulted for prior SMM cycles, retained for 2026 in the absence of contrary evidence, confirm that BRTC’s governance framework lacks institutional independence. The broadcaster functions as an extension of state policy, and decision-making remains highly centralised within the Ministry of Information.

Source of funding and budget

BRTC’s financial structure is predominantly reliant on state subsidies disbursed through the Ministry of Information. Estimates from Bahraini journalists and media analysts consulted for prior SMM cycles, retained for 2026 in the absence of contrary evidence, suggest that over 60 per cent of BRTC’s operating budget comes from direct public funding, with the remainder supplemented by limited advertising revenue. Commercial revenue is constrained both by the broadcaster’s political alignment with the government and by the relatively narrow domestic market. BRTC does not publish detailed audited financial statements, and transparency regarding its budget and revenue mix remains limited.

The Bahraini government has continued to invest in the country’s media-sector visibility during the cycle, including through the “Manama Capital of Arab Media 2024” designation conferred by the Arab League’s Council of Arab Information Ministers, which was used to showcase BRTC’s broadcasting operations and the broader state-aligned media sector. The 2025/26 cycle has not produced any reform of BRTC’s funding model, any diversification of its revenue base, or any increase in its budget-transparency practices. The August 2025 departure of Omar Khalifa Shaheen from Radio Bahrain Company’s CEO role, after four years in post, has been the principal documented senior-management change during the cycle.

Editorial independence

BRTC is widely regarded as a government-aligned broadcaster with minimal editorial autonomy. Its programming consistently reflects the official positions of the Bahraini government, and its editorial output is understood by independent observers as a vehicle for state messaging rather than independent journalism.

The broader Bahraini media environment within which BRTC operates is among the most restrictive in the Middle East and North Africa region. According to Reporters Without Borders, Al Wasat, the last independent newspaper in Bahrain, was shut down by the authorities in 2017, and the country’s remaining television and radio outlets are all controlled by the Ministry of Information. Bahrain’s six national dailies (four in Arabic and two in English) are described by RSF as semi-governmental and owned by a member of the royal family, which the publications cannot criticise. Several journalists and bloggers remain imprisoned, including Abduljalil Al-Singace, who has been serving a life sentence for more than a decade and has continued an extended hunger strike against the conditions of his detention.

BRTC’s role during the 2011 Bahraini uprising, when the broadcaster was publicly criticised for cooperating with state security agencies in the identification of protest participants who subsequently faced criminal prosecution and other punitive measures, remains analytically defining of its editorial relationship with the government. More than a decade later, in the assessment of regional press-freedom monitors and the experts consulted for prior SMM cycles, the symbiotic relationship between BRTC and the Bahraini state remains substantively unchanged.

To date, no domestic legislation or independent regulatory mechanism guarantees BRTC’s editorial independence or subjects it to credible non-governmental oversight. The 2025/26 cycle saw a material expansion of the legal framework governing media and online expression in Bahrain through the adoption of Press and Electronic Media Law No. 41 of 2025, effective from 31 October 2025, which press-freedom and human-rights organisations including Human Rights Watch and MENA Rights have criticised as further extending state control over media output and online expression. External evaluations from Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House and the Committee to Protect Journalists consistently identify the absence of safeguards against direct government interference in BRTC’s editorial output, the broader legal environment for journalism in Bahrain, and the systematic constraints on independent media as placing the country’s principal public broadcaster well below international standards for public-service broadcasting.

AI and digital policy

No BRTC-specific public policy on generative AI, synthetic-media disclosure or content provenance was identified during this review, and AI policy at BRTC and other government-aligned media outlets in Bahrain remains, where it exists at all, an internal administrative matter handled without published guidance.

Classification rationale

BRTC remains classified as State-Controlled (SC) for the 2026 cycle. The broadcaster is government-owned, operates under the executive authority of the Ministry of Information, and has no independent statutory firewall, non-state appointment mechanism or credible arm’s-length editorial oversight. Its funding remains predominantly public, supplemented by limited advertising revenue, with no published audited financial statements enabling independent scrutiny of the revenue mix. The broader Bahraini media environment is one of severe state control: Reporters Without Borders ranked Bahrain 170th of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, down thirteen places from 157th in 2025, and the RSF country profile records that the country’s television and radio outlets are controlled by the Ministry of Information while the remaining national press is semi-governmental and royally owned. The adoption of Press and Electronic Media Law No. 41 of 2025 further reinforces the analytical need to treat BRTC as part of an executive-controlled media system rather than as an independent public-service broadcaster.

On ownership and governance, BRTC is wholly owned by the Government of Bahrain, operates under the executive control of the Ministry of Information, and has its senior leadership appointed by royal decree. There is no independent governing board, no non-state appointment mechanism for senior positions, and no statutory mediation between government policy and broadcasting operations.

On funding, BRTC depends predominantly on direct public-funding subsidies disbursed through the Ministry of Information, with limited and politically constrained commercial revenue. The funding mechanism provides no insulation between government policy preferences and broadcaster operations.

On editorial independence, BRTC operates without any domestic statutory firewall, without an independent editorial oversight body, and within a broader media environment in which independent journalism has been systematically constrained through the 2017 closure of Al Wasat, the continuing imprisonment of journalists and bloggers, and the further legal restrictions introduced through the October 2025 Press and Electronic Media Law. Its historical record of operational cooperation with state security agencies, particularly during the 2011 uprising, and the structural continuity of its government-aligned editorial posture, distinguish BRTC from peer broadcasters in MENA where institutional firewalls have been at least partially maintained.

June 2026