Kuwait Television

Kuwait Television (KTV) is the official state-run television broadcaster of the State of Kuwait, operated as part of the Ministry of Information and Culture. Kuwait TV began broadcasting on 15 November 1961 and remains institutionally embedded in the Kuwaiti state’s information apparatus rather than operating as an arm’s-length public broadcaster. KTV operates the Ministry’s official television portfolio including KTV1, KTV2, KTV Sport, KTV Sport Plus, KTV Kids, KTV Ethraa, KTV Al Araby, Al Qurain and KTV Al Majlis, complemented by the Al-Akhbar news channel launched on 28 July 2024 and the 51 Kuwait streaming platform launched in May 2024.

Media assets

Terrestrial and thematic television: KTV1 (general Arabic-language channel), KTV2 (English-language), KTV Sport, KTV Sport Plus, KTV Kids, KTV Ethraa, KTV Al Araby, Al Qurain, KTV Al Majlis

News television: Al-Akhbar, launched by the Ministry of Information on 28 July 2024

Ownership and governance

Kuwait Television began broadcasting in November 1961, shortly after Kuwait’s independence on 19 June 1961, and has remained a government broadcasting operation throughout its history. KTV operates as an internal administrative unit of the Ministry of Information and Culture rather than as a publicly chartered broadcaster or arm’s-length corporation; its legal and administrative identity is therefore indistinguishable from that of the Ministry, with no corporate or statutory firewall ensuring functional separation from government.

The 2025/26 cycle’s main institutional event for KTV governance was the February 2026 reshuffle of the government headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah. Decree No. 11 of 2026 appointed Abdullah Buftain as Minister of Information and Culture on 1 February 2026, succeeding Abdulrahman Al-Mutairi, and separated the Youth and Sport Affairs portfolio from the Ministry of Information. However, Buftain’s resignation was accepted on 4 February 2026, and Omar Saud Al-Omar, Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, was named Acting Minister of Information and Culture; KTV therefore operated for most of the SMM review period under the ministerial authority of the acting information minister rather than under Buftain.

Source of funding and budget

Kuwait Television is financed overwhelmingly through public allocations to the Ministry of Information and Culture, with no significant independent commercial funding source identified by SMM during the 2025/26 review. According to local journalists and sector experts consulted by SMM for prior cycles, KTV operates with total financial dependence on the state, and KTV-specific revenue and expenditure are not separately broken out from the Ministry’s consolidated budget in publicly disclosed General Budget documentation.

For the 2025/26 fiscal year, Kuwait’s official state budget allocated KWD 254.070 million to the Ministry of Information. No standalone KTV budget line was identified in publicly disclosed Ministry of Information or Ministry of Finance documentation. The 2025/26 cycle produced no structural funding reform: KTV continued to operate within the Ministry’s consolidated budget framework, and no published transition toward audited public financial disclosure for KTV-specific operations was identified during the SMM review. The Ministry of Information has also been preparing a 2026-2030 media strategy, which official statements indicate will emphasise institutional development, digital transformation, performance indicators and modernisation of media operations.

Editorial independence

As an internal division of the Ministry of Information and Culture, Kuwait Television is subject to direct ministerial control without intermediate corporate or statutory governance structures. According to SMM-retained expert sources and local and regional media experts consulted during prior cycles, the Ministry issues editorial directives that guide content production across thematic areas, particularly those concerning politics, foreign affairs, public discourse and state messaging; political programming including talk shows and news coverage operates under close ministerial monitoring, with limited space for divergent or oppositional perspectives. The broadcaster functions as an instrument for state narrative management rather than as a platform for independent journalism or pluralistic debate.

No statute or legal instrument guaranteeing the editorial independence of Kuwait Television has been identified in Kuwaiti law, and the broadcaster functions entirely within the structure of the Ministry of Information and Culture without a legal charter, independent editorial code or regulatory protections that would enable or enforce independence from political authority. The wider Kuwaiti press-freedom environment tightened during the cycle: following the 2026 Iran-Israel/US regional escalation and its repercussions in the Gulf, the Interior Ministry called on the public not to post images or information related to the airstrikes, and press-freedom monitors reported that journalists risked prosecution for photos or comments deviating from the official government version.

AI and digital policy

Kuwait Television has not published a public-facing institutional AI policy. Kuwait’s broader digital-policy framework involves the communications and information-technology portfolio (re-titled in February 2026 as the Ministry of State for Communications and Information Technology Affairs), the Central Agency for Information Technology and wider state digital-transformation initiatives, while the Ministry of Information’s forthcoming 2026-2030 strategy has been presented as part of a modernisation effort for Kuwaiti media.

Classification rationale

Kuwait Television remains classified as State-Controlled (SC) for the 2026 cycle. KTV operates as an internal division of the Ministry of Information and Culture (not as a separate corporate or statutory entity), with editorial, technical and management structures embedded within the Ministry’s public-sector hierarchy and no independent board, arm’s-length governance mechanism or statutory editorial firewall protecting its editorial production from ministerial direction; ministerial authority for KTV during the SMM review period rested for most of the cycle with Omar Saud Al-Omar as Acting Minister of Information and Culture, following the resignation on 4 February 2026 of Abdullah Buftain (appointed 1 February 2026 under Decree No. 11 of 2026). The broadcaster’s funding is drawn overwhelmingly from public allocations through the Ministry of Information budget (KWD 254.070 million in the 2025/26 fiscal year), with no standalone KTV budget line separately identified in publicly disclosed budget documentation and no evidence of a structural funding reform, independent audited disclosure regime or meaningful commercial autonomy identified during the cycle. The 2025/26 cycle produced no governance, funding or editorial reform sufficient to move KTV out of the SC category: the broadcaster continued to function as the principal state television broadcaster and core channel for Kuwaiti government communication, with editorial production aligned to ministerial authority during a cycle marked by continued rule by Amiri decree after the May 2024 dissolution of parliament, the February 2026 information-ministry reshuffle and resignation, and tighter press-freedom restrictions linked to coverage of the regional conflict around Iran.

June 2026