Israeli Broadcasting Public Corporation (IPBC)

The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC), branded Kan in Hebrew and Makan in Arabic, is the Israeli public broadcaster, established by the 2014 Public Broadcasting Law and on air since 15 May 2017 as the successor to the dissolved Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA). IPBC operates three national television channels and a portfolio of radio stations across Hebrew, Arabic and other languages, alongside a substantial digital and on-demand portfolio.

Media assets

Television: Kan 11 (general); Kan Educational (youth and children); Makan 33 (Arabic-language)

Radio: Kan Bet / Reshet Bet, Kan Gimel, Kan 88, Kan Tarbut, Kan Moreshet, Kan Kol HaMusica, Kan Reka and Makan; additional language services including Farsi are carried within immigrant-language output

Ownership and governance

IPBC is governed by a 12-member Council (sometimes referred to as a Board of Directors), appointed under the 2014 Public Broadcasting Law through a search committee process rather than direct ministerial appointment, with statutory diversity requirements including a minimum number of women and Arab members. The Council’s core responsibilities include shaping corporate policy, approving programming schedules and the annual budget, appointing the Director-General and monitoring the executive team’s performance.

Golan Yochpaz has served as Director-General since 2022 and continued in post throughout the 2025/26 review period, publicly representing IPBC in domestic institutional forums and in international public-broadcasting contexts, including the EBU debate over Israel’s participation in Eurovision 2026.

The 2025/26 cycle’s defining institutional development for IPBC has been the prolonged dysfunction of its governing Council. Five Council members’ terms ended in November 2024 and were not replaced; by March 2026, the Council had only five serving members of its statutory twelve and was below the seven-member quorum required for substantive decisions, including budget approval. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi appointed retired judge Nechama Munitz to chair the IPBC search committee in March 2025, then dismissed her on 17 September 2025; the High Court of Justice ruled in May 2026 that the dismissal was invalid and ordered the appointment process to advance, with the court ruling earlier in August 2025 that Karhi himself has no authority to be involved in appointments once a search committee chair has been appointed. The IPBC Council remained below quorum at the close of the SMM review window.

The Communications Minister, Shlomo Karhi, remained in post throughout the cycle under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government and has continued to pursue what Israeli media observers have described as a two-year legislative campaign against the broadcaster.

Source of funding and budget

Historically, most IPBC funding has come from a state-derived mechanism linked to vehicle-licence-fee revenues channelled through the Ministry of Transport, supplemented by advertising and miscellaneous income. Earlier IPBC data placed the state-derived share at approximately 88 per cent, but current-year figures were not identified in public audited form during the 2025/26 review. In 2023, IPBC operated with a total budget of approximately ILS 822.8 million (US$228 million); for the 2026 budget year, the broadcaster operated under a continuation budget rather than a Council-approved annual allocation, since the Council below-quorum status documented above has prevented formal budget approval since the start of 2026.

Two distinct legislative tracks have targeted IPBC’s funding architecture during the cycle. A June 2025 private-member budget-cut bill proposed reducing IPBC’s total budget from roughly ILS 700 million to ILS 500 million while forbidding advertising and limiting archival-content revenues; this bill had not been enacted at the close of the review window. Separately, a Karhi-promoted bill seeking to replace the automatic-allocation mechanism with an annual government allocation while setting a statutory minimum annual budget floor of ILS 650 million advanced through the Knesset to a first-of-three readings on 25 to 26 May 2026 after the Knesset House Committee transferred the bill from the Economics Committee (whose chair, Likud MK David Bitan, had blocked it) to the Finance Committee. As of the close of the SMM 2025/26 review window, the budget-control bill had not become law.

Editorial independence

IPBC’s editorial production continued during the 2025/26 cycle under sustained external pressure but without documented evidence of editorial capture. Content analysis conducted by the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) between January and March 2024 detected no systematic pro-government bias and characterised IPBC’s journalism as cautious and fact-focused. The 2025/26 cycle has not produced evidence reversing that assessment: Director-General Yochpaz publicly defended IPBC’s editorial role in international forums, IPBC itself publicly opposed the government budget-control bill on the ground that it would “open the door to political interference”, and external commentators including the Israel Democracy Institute have characterised the cycle as one in which the coalition’s campaign against the broadcaster has “not succeeded” in dismantling or capturing it.

A bill sponsored by Likud MK Galit Distel Atbaryan to dismantle or sharply curtail IPBC’s news operation, including proposals affecting Kan’s news division, Makan 33 and Reshet Bet, advanced in committee during the cycle. The Attorney-General’s Office has raised institutional concerns over political interference in IPBC, including in litigation before the High Court of Justice, and the European Broadcasting Union has publicly urged Israel to keep IPBC’s budget and governance free from direct government pressure. The Israel Democracy Institute, the Israel Press Council and the Israel Journalists’ Association have made similar institutional interventions throughout the cycle.

Section 7 of the 2014 Public Broadcasting Law requires IPBC content to “reflect and document the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, its values and the heritage of Israel, and give fair, equal and balanced expression to the diversity of views and opinions prevalent in the Israeli public”, and IPBC is legally bound to a code of professional and journalistic standards. Beyond IPBC’s internal professional standards and statutory Council structure, the main external safeguard during the cycle was judicial intervention through the High Court of Justice, which preserved the statutory appointment framework against ministerial action rather than the regular functioning of the statutory governance mechanism.

AI and digital policy

IPBC has not published a public-facing institutional AI policy. Israeli national AI policy is pursued primarily through the Israel National AI Programme, with emphasis on innovation, public-sector and industrial adoption, infrastructure and governance rather than a public-broadcasting-specific generative-AI framework. No public-sector generative-AI framework specific to IPBC was identified during the 2025/26 review.

Classification rationale

IPBC remains classified as Independent State-Funded and State-Managed (ISFM) for the 2026 cycle, with explicit SMM watch-list status. The 2014 Public Broadcasting Law, the search-committee appointment process, the state-derived funding mechanism and IPBC’s editorially independent newsroom remained in force during the review period; the High Court of Justice intervened repeatedly to preserve the statutory appointment framework against ministerial interference, and SMM/MJRC content analysis has not identified systematic pro-government bias in IPBC output. However, the Council remained below quorum for much of the cycle, IPBC operated under a continuation budget, and legislative efforts to reshape budget control, curtail or dismantle the news division and privatise or restructure elements of the broadcaster remained active. The classification therefore reflects the legal and editorial safeguards still operating at the close of the cycle, while the next review will depend on whether the Council-quorum crisis is resolved and whether pending legislation becomes law.

June 2026