Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV)

The Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) is Pakistan’s state-owned national television broadcaster. Its first transmission took place on 26 November 1964. The service was initially developed with Japan’s Nippon Electric Company and Britain’s Thomas Television International. In 1965, operations were transferred to Television Promoters Limited, a private company jointly run by the two foreign partners in which the Government of Pakistan held the largest shareholding. Pakistan Television Corporation was incorporated on 29 May 1967 under the Companies Act 1913 and took over the earlier company. PTV maintains production centres in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Muzaffarabad.

Media assets

Television: PTV News, PTV Home, PTV Sports, PTV World, PTV National, AJK TV, PTV Bolan, PTV Global, PTV Parliament

Ownership and governance

PTV is operated by Pakistan Television Corporation Limited, a public limited company wholly owned by the Government of Pakistan. It falls within the administrative portfolio of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Its board and senior executive leadership are constituted through federal government decisions.

The board underwent a reconstitution process in 2025. On 15 July, the Cabinet Committee on State-Owned Enterprises approved six independent directors for PTVC: Ishtiaq Baig, Yasir S. Qureshi, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Tasneem Rehman, Leyla Zuberi and Khalid Mehmood Khan. Subsequent reporting on an October reconstitution named five of those directors and said that selection of the chair had been deferred.

The addition of independent directors broadens the board beyond government officials, but it does not create an arm’s-length appointment structure. The directors were selected through a government-controlled process involving the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Cabinet Committee on State-Owned Enterprises and the federal executive.

PTV has not had a permanent Managing Director during the review period. Ambreen Jan, then Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, held additional charge until December 2025. On 17 December, Federal Information Secretary Ashfaq Ahmed Khalil was assigned additional charge for three months or until the appointment of a permanent incumbent. The permanent post remained vacant in July 2026, with the Information Secretary continuing to exercise the Managing Director’s functions and reporting to the National Assembly standing committee on PTV’s finances in that capacity. The arrangement places the most senior official of the supervising ministry simultaneously in operational charge of the broadcaster.

PTV and the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation are also linked institutionally: the Managing Director of PTV holds an ex-officio seat on the PBC board.

Source of funding and budget

Until 2025, PTV’s principal revenue source was a compulsory television licence fee collected through domestic electricity bills. PTV’s 2018–19 financial reporting placed licence-fee income at more than 71% of its budget, while the fee generated PKR 8.109 billion in FY2020–21. Because the levy was collected from audiences rather than provided as a direct government grant, PTV did not previously meet the State Media Matrix condition for predominant state funding.

That funding structure changed in 2025. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered the discontinuation of the PKR 35 monthly fee, and the Power Division subsequently confirmed that its collection through electricity bills had been abolished.

Following the abolition, the Economic Coordination Committee considered a request for a PKR 11 billion supplementary grant for PTVC in FY2025–26. It initially approved PKR 3.813 billion, with the remainder to be released quarterly for salaries, pensions and operating expenses. In approving the support, the committee instructed PTV to reduce its reliance on the federal budget and work towards financial self-sufficiency.

The dependence has continued through the fiscal year in short, recurring tranches. In June 2026 the ECC approved the release of PKR 733 million to PTVC to meet salary requirements for the single month of June 2026, and a further technical supplementary grant of PKR 3 billion for the corporation appeared on the same month’s agenda.

On 2 January 2026, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting criticised PTV for failing to produce a business plan and alternative revenue streams following the discontinuation of licence-fee collection. The committee’s statement that PTV could not meet its operating and employee-related expenses through government grants alone confirms both the abolition of the fee and the corporation’s resulting dependence on direct public funding.

PTV continues to seek advertising, content-licensing, digital, commercial-partnership and property income. Its January 2025 business plan proposed digital expansion, content licensing, public-private partnerships and greater use of PTV property. No published evidence was identified showing that these sources exceeded the PKR 11 billion federal grant during FY2025–26.

The new funding structure meets the State Media Matrix condition for predominant state funding. The direct federal grant replaced an audience levy that had previously supplied most of PTV’s income and was allocated to cover the broadcaster’s central operating costs. This change requires PTV’s reclassification from Captured Public/State-Managed to State-Controlled.

Editorial independence

PTV has a public-service mandate but no effective institutional firewall protecting its editorial decisions from the government. No publicly accessible legislation or binding editorial charter was identified that guarantees the autonomy of its newsroom or prevents the federal executive or supervising ministry from intervening in coverage. Nor was a PTV-specific independent ombudsman, external editorial complaints body or mechanism for auditing political balance identified.

State Media Monitor assessments obtained from Pakistani journalists and media experts in March 2023, June 2024 and May 2025 described PTV as closely tethered to state interests, with limited room for critical or dissenting perspectives. PTV’s own public description assigns it responsibility for public-service broadcasting, but its institutional structure leaves the federal government in control of board appointments and senior management.

A January 2025 parliamentary controversy provided direct evidence of these concerns. Members of the Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting criticised the blackout of opposition speeches on state television and raised wider concerns about censorship of political content, particularly material relating to former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ambreen Jan, who was serving simultaneously as Information Secretary and PTV Managing Director, suggested that the blackout might have resulted from a technical problem.

The continuing assignment of the Managing Director’s functions to the federal Information Secretary compounds the absence of editorial separation. The same official heads the ministry responsible for government communications and exercises operational authority over the national television broadcaster.

AI and digital policy

PTV distributes material through its television channels, websites, online streaming, mobile services and social-media platforms. No publicly accessible PTV-wide editorial policy was identified governing generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, automated content production or disclosure of AI-assisted material.

Pakistan approved its National Artificial Intelligence Policy on 31 July 2025. The Islamabad AI Declaration, issued on 9 February 2026, subsequently called for human accountability and for public-sector AI systems to be explainable, auditable and proportionate to risk. These instruments establish national principles for AI development and public-sector use but do not constitute a PTV editorial code or prescribe disclosure rules for AI-generated broadcasting content.

Classification rationale

PTV is classified State-Controlled (SC) in 2026, meeting all three conditions of the State Media Matrix.

It is predominantly state-funded. The audience licence fee that previously supplied most of its income was abolished in 2025 and replaced by a PKR 11 billion federal grant for FY2025–26. The grant was intended to cover salaries, pensions and operational expenses, and official parliamentary reporting confirms PTV’s resulting reliance on government funding. By mid-2026 the corporation was drawing month-by-month releases from the Economic Coordination Committee to meet payroll.

It is state-owned and state-governed. PTVC is wholly owned by the federal government and operates under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Its board members are selected through government-controlled procedures, while the permanent Managing Director’s post remained vacant in July 2026 and its functions were exercised by the federal Information Secretary.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state control. No enforceable editorial firewall or independent oversight mechanism protects its newsroom. SMM expert assessments describe its output as aligned with state interests, and the documented blackout of opposition speeches demonstrates that political coverage can be restricted at the broadcaster.

The addition of independent directors in 2025 is a relevant but insufficient countervailing development. The directors remain federal government appointees, the full composition and chairmanship of the reconstituted board have not been made transparently available, and the government continues to control the corporation’s executive leadership and finances.

This reclassification records a change in PTV’s funding structure, not a deterioration in its editorial independence, which was already assessed as absent. The outlet moved category because the abolition of the licence fee removed the one Matrix condition it did not previously meet.

July 2026