Hanoi Press and Radio-Television Agency

The Hanoi Press and Radio-Television Agency is the consolidated municipal press and broadcasting body of Vietnam’s capital, created on 1 February 2026 by merging the city’s broadcaster with five city newspapers. It reports to the Standing Board of the Hanoi Party Committee rather than to the city government, and operates under Regulation 373-QĐ/TW, which defines agencies of its kind as the mouthpiece of the local Party organisation, the government and the people. It absorbed Hanoi Radio Television, previously mapped separately by State Media Monitor.

Media assets

Television: Hanoi 1 (H1) and Hanoi 2 (H2). Hanoi television broadcasting began on 1 January 1979; H2 originates in the former Hà Tây broadcasting service incorporated into Hanoi following the 2008 administrative merger

Radio: FM90, Hanoi news and traffic, and FM96, Hanoi news and music. The city’s radio service dates from 14 October 1954, four days after the Viet Minh took control of the capital

Newspapers: Hànộimới, the Hanoi Party Committee’s daily; Kinh tế và Đô thị, covering economy and urban affairs; Phụ nữ Thủ đô; Lao động Thủ đô; and Tuổi trẻ Thủ đô

Digital: hanoionline.vn and the HANOI ON multimedia application, launched on 10 July 2024, alongside the electronic editions of the newspaper titles

The HanoiTV and Hànộimới brands were retained through the merger. Regulation 373-QĐ/TW permits agencies of this kind no more than six departments, with Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City allowed up to seven, and indicates department names covering the office, editorial secretariat, current affairs, special topics, technology, and services and advertising.

Ownership and governance

On 30 January 2026 the Standing Board of the Hanoi Party Committee issued Decision 1115-QĐ/TU establishing the agency by merging six city press organisations: the newspapers Hànộimới, Kinh tế và Đô thị, Phụ nữ Thủ đô, Lao động Thủ đô and Tuổi trẻ Thủ đô, together with Hanoi Radio Television. The decision took effect on 1 February 2026 and was formally announced on 5 February by the then Hanoi Party Secretary, Nguyễn Duy Ngọc.

The agency operates under Regulation 373-QĐ/TW, issued by the Party Secretariat on 23 September 2025 and replacing Regulation 338-QĐ/TW of 2010. The regulation places provincial and city press and broadcasting agencies directly under the local Party committee, defines them as the mouthpiece of the local Party organisation, the government and the people, and describes them as a bridge between the Party and government on one side and the population on the other. It provides for a Director and no more than four deputy directors, and leaves staffing numbers to the provincial or city Party standing board, determined by task requirements and the agency’s level of financial autonomy.

Decision 1122-QĐ/TU of 30 January appointed the agency’s initial Director, three Deputy Directors and a seven-member Editorial Council. Leadership changed again during the summer. Vũ Minh Tuấn, appointed Director in January, was transferred on 10 August 2026 back to the Hanoi Party Committee’s Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission as a Deputy Head, the position he had held before the merger. Nguyễn Thanh Liêm, a member of the Hanoi Party Committee and then Party Secretary and People’s Council Chair of Quang Minh commune, was appointed Director at a conference chaired by the Party Secretary, Trần Đức Thắng. He had previously been Director of Hanoi’s Department of Information and Communications and Party Secretary of Mê Linh district. Nguyễn Kim Khiêm, Nguyễn Minh Đức and Nguyễn Thành Lợi remain Deputy Directors, having led Hanoi Radio Television, Hànộimới and Kinh tế và Đô thị respectively before the merger.

The shift of authority is the central governance fact. Hanoi Radio Television previously answered to the Hanoi People’s Committee, the city government. The agency answers to the city Party committee, which established it, appoints its leadership and has already replaced its Director once within seven months. The arrangement anticipated the national restructuring two months later, when Vietnam Television and Voice of Vietnam were moved from the government to the Communist Party Central Committee and their directors concurrently became deputy heads of the Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission, renamed the Central Propaganda Commission from 1 August 2026.

Ho Chi Minh City followed the same model. Decision 863-QĐ/TU created the Ho Chi Minh City Press and Radio-Television Agency under that city’s Party Committee, operational from 2 July 2026, comprising Sài Gòn Giải Phóng, an electronic-only Tuổi Trẻ and the city broadcaster HTV, with eight further city outlets dissolved.

The merger forms part of a sustained national contraction. By the end of 2025 Vietnam had 137 press organisations, down from 195 in 2019, following a restructuring that closed or absorbed outlets including VOVTV and the VTC television channels in January 2025.

Source of funding and budget

Regulation 373-QĐ/TW sets the financial model. Agencies of this kind operate as revenue-earning public service units, carry out political tasks assigned by the competent authority, and are financed through commissioning, tendering and other support mechanisms provided for by regulation. Each is a first-level budget estimating unit of the provincial or city budget. Staffing levels are set with reference to the agency’s degree of financial autonomy.

That framework mixes public commissioning with own revenue, and Hanoi has published no figures showing the balance. State Media Monitor identified no stand-alone budget, audited financial statements, or breakdown of the finances of the agency or of its constituent operations. The newspaper titles carry advertising, and the broadcaster carries advertising on television and radio, but no disclosure establishes the respective shares of public and commercial income.

Media experts and local journalists interviewed by State Media Monitor in June 2024, March 2025 and April 2026 describe the city’s broadcasting service as dependent predominantly on public funding, with commercial income insufficient to alter that dependence. That evidence concerns the broadcaster as it operated before the merger. The agency created on 1 February 2026 is a substantially larger organisation with a different funding perimeter, encompassing five newspaper titles alongside the broadcasting service, and State Media Monitor has established no equivalent finding for the consolidated body.

Editorial independence

State Media Monitor identified no statutory guarantee of editorial independence for the agency or its constituent titles. Regulation 373-QĐ/TW defines the body itself as the mouthpiece of the local Party organisation, the government and the people, and assigns it information and propaganda functions across print, electronic, radio, television and online content channels. It further tasks such agencies with launching and organising patriotic emulation movements and publicising exemplary individuals and models.

The agency has no independent governing board or external editorial oversight mechanism. It does have a seven-member Editorial Council, appointed by the same decision of the Party standing board that named its directors, and therefore situated inside rather than outside the structure it might otherwise check.

Interviews conducted for State Media Monitor in June 2024, March 2025 and April 2026 describe editorial decisions taken in line with Party guidance and city government policy, with content closely aligned to official positions on local governance, public services and community affairs.

The national legal framework was rewritten during the review period. On 10 December 2025 the National Assembly passed a new Press Law, number 126/2025/QH15, and a new Cybersecurity Law, number 116/2025/QH15, both in force from 1 July 2026. The Press Law regulates press activity in cyberspace, adds permitted revenue sources for press organisations, and broadens compulsory state access to journalistic sources, expanding the authorities entitled to demand disclosure and removing the previous restriction limiting such demands to very serious and especially serious crimes.

AI and digital policy

Vietnam became the first Southeast Asian country to bring a standalone artificial intelligence law into force. The National Assembly passed Law 134/2025/QH15 on 10 December 2025 and it took effect on 1 March 2026. Article 11 requires providers to mark AI-generated audio, images and video in machine-readable form, requires deployers to notify the public where AI-generated or AI-edited material could cause confusion about the authenticity of events or persons, and requires visible labels on content simulating a real person’s appearance or voice. Decree 142/2026/NĐ-CP, issued on 30 April 2026 and effective from 1 May, provides the implementing detail.

A separate Press Law implementing measure, Decree 237/2026/NĐ-CP, effective 1 July 2026, imposes media-specific duties. Press organisations must verify and review AI-generated or AI-assisted content, assume responsibility for its authenticity and legality, clearly label generated or edited material where it could cause confusion about authenticity, maintain internal review and risk control procedures, and retain relevant activity logs and technical records.

These obligations apply to the agency as to any Vietnamese press body. State Media Monitor identified no agency-level editorial policy on generative AI, synthetic media, human verification or disclosure of AI-assisted material.

Classification rationale

The Hanoi Press and Radio-Television Agency is classified Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu). Hanoi Radio Television, which it absorbed, was classified State-Controlled. The classification is not carried forward: the legal entity and the funding perimeter both changed on 1 February 2026, and the new organisation is assessed on its own evidence.

It is state-operated and Party-governed. The agency was created by decision of the Standing Board of the Hanoi Party Committee, which appoints its Director, deputy directors and Editorial Council, and which replaced the Director in August 2026 seven months after appointing him. Regulation 373-QĐ/TW places it directly under that committee. It has no shareholders and no independent governing board, and no independent appointing body, protected tenure or external oversight mechanism was identified.

Its editorial agenda is directed by the state. Regulation 373-QĐ/TW defines the agency as the mouthpiece of the local Party organisation, the government and the people, and assigns it propaganda functions across every platform it operates. Interview evidence gathered across three rounds describes editorial decisions taken in line with Party guidance and city policy.

Predominant state funding is not demonstrated, and this is the condition that places the agency in CaPu rather than State-Controlled. Regulation 373-QĐ/TW establishes a mixed model in which agencies of this kind operate as revenue-earning public service units, carry out political tasks that are assigned, commissioned or tendered, and may take advertising, business, service and sponsorship income, while also functioning as first-level estimating units of the city budget. The regulation treats the degree of financial autonomy as consequential enough to help determine staffing levels.

August 2026