Fuerzas Armadas TV

Fuerzas Armadas TV (Canal Fuerzas Armadas T.V.) is the television channel of the Honduran Armed Forces, operated by the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA). It was launched on 26 November 2015 by the Armed Forces’ Joint Chiefs of Staff, through the military’s Public Relations Directorate, to project the institution’s work and image. Originally carried mainly through subscription television rather than a dedicated free-to-air frequency, the channel was formally declared a channel of the State of Honduras by executive decree PCM-082-2018, published in the official gazette La Gaceta in January 2019. CONATEL later communicated and enforced this status by instructing cable operators to include Canal Fuerzas Armadas T.V. in their subscription-television grids, assigning it cable position 71. Its programming includes newscasts, educational, cultural and religious content, and material promoting the work of the Armed Forces.

Media assets

Television: Fuerzas Armadas TV (Canal Fuerzas Armadas T.V.), distributed through cable and subscription-television carriage (including Cable Color, Honduvisión and other operators, and a regulator-assigned cable position), with digital/satellite distribution and online streaming through the Armed Forces’ YouTube and social-media channels.

Ownership and governance

Fuerzas Armadas TV is owned and operated by the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), one of the executive branch’s state secretariats, and is run through the Armed Forces’ Public Relations Directorate. It is not an arm’s-length public broadcaster: it has no independent board, no competitive or protected appointment process and no governance structure separate from the military command, and its operation is directed within the defense establishment. Its status as a state outlet is not merely informal but formally established: executive decree PCM-082-2018 declared it a channel of the State of Honduras.

This places the channel under the defense command of the day, which changed at the 2026 transfer of power. Under the Armed Forces’ Constitutive Law, the high command consists of the President of the Republic as Commander General, the Secretary of National Defense and the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Following President Nasry Asfura’s inauguration on 27 January 2026, the defense chain of command was updated: Enrique Rodríguez Burchard became Secretary of National Defense and Héctor Benjamín Valerio Ardón serves as Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The channel therefore passed with the institution to the incoming defense leadership, without any change in its character as a military outlet attached to the executive.

As with the other Honduran state outlets, this classification rests on institutional structure rather than the politics of any single administration. The channel is an instrument of the Armed Forces and the Defense Secretariat, and it serves the defense leadership and government in office regardless of which administration holds power.

Source of funding and budget

Fuerzas Armadas TV is financed through the Secretariat of National Defense and Armed Forces budget and procurement channels, which retain control over it. No separately disclosed channel-level budget was found; its operating resources appear embedded in SEDENA / Armed Forces contracting, including tenders for satellite uplink, internet, signal insertion and cable-television services for the channel. The channel has no independent commercial-revenue base, and its resources are controlled by the same defense structure that directs its institutional role.

Editorial independence

Editorial direction is set within the Armed Forces and the Defense Secretariat rather than by any independent newsroom authority. While the channel’s programming is not exclusively military, covering educational, cultural, religious and general-interest content, its editorial stance is consistently supportive of the Armed Forces and presents the institution’s activities and priorities. There is no domestic legislation enshrining the channel’s editorial independence, and no independent oversight or evaluation mechanism exists to verify its impartiality. The channel functions as the public-relations and communications platform of the military, and its agenda follows the defense establishment.

AI and digital policy

SMM found no dedicated editorial AI-governance policy published by Fuerzas Armadas TV or the Secretariat of National Defense as of mid-2026, and no disclosed framework governing the use of AI in editorial production, verification, attribution, synthetic-media labelling, recommendation systems, audience analytics or human oversight. Honduras has no comprehensive national AI law in force, and public-sector AI adoption remains at an early stage. The channel’s principal digital development is its multiplatform distribution: cable and satellite carriage alongside online streaming and active social-media channels operated by the Armed Forces. Any AI use in its output would follow the defense establishment’s communications priorities rather than a published editorial standard.

Classification rationale

Fuerzas Armadas TV is classified State-Controlled because it is owned and operated directly by a branch of the state, the Secretariat of National Defense and the Armed Forces, with no independent board, no protected or competitively appointed leadership, dependence on the defense budget, and no statutory or institutional safeguard for editorial autonomy. Its status as a state channel is formally established by executive decree, and its output functions as the communications and public-relations platform of the military.

This reflects the institutional structure rather than the politics of any single administration. The channel is attached to the executive through the Defense Secretariat and serves the defense command and government of the day; it passed to the incoming government’s defense leadership at the 2026 transfer of power without any change in its institutional character. The SC classification is unchanged for 2026.

June 2026