Lao National TV

Lao National Television (LNTV) is the principal state broadcaster of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, operating two national channels alongside a network of provincial services. Experimental television broadcasting in Laos began on 15 April 1980. Lao State Television was formally established and began regular broadcasting on 1 December 1983, initially transmitting three days a week for three hours a day. Satellite transmission began in 1994, and the two-channel structure of LNTV1 and LNTV3 dates from 1995. The broadcaster is headquartered in Saythany, Vientiane, and its signal reaches border areas of Thailand as well as the whole of Laos.

In June and July 2025 LNTV ceased to be supervised by a government ministry. Together with the other principal state media, it was transferred to the direct authority of the ruling party’s information and ideological organ, a change of institutional character rather than merely of reporting line, and the most significant development in this profile.

Media assets

National television: LNTV1 and LNTV3 HD

Provincial television services mapped by SMM: LNTV Attapeu, Bokeo, Borikhamsai, Champassak, Houaphan, Khammouane, Luangnamtha, Luangprabang, Oudomxai, Phongsali, Saiyabouli, Saravane, Savannakhet, Sekong and Xiengkhouang. LNTV’s own institutional history additionally refers to some 30 local branch and relay stations; these figures may describe different categories of facility.

Ownership and governance

LNTV is a state-owned and state-operated broadcaster. Until 2025 it fell under the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism. It is now supervised by the Commission for Information and Education of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party Central Committee, the body referred to in 2025 English-language reporting as the Propaganda and Training Board, which oversees the Party’s information, ideological and media work. Its head is Khamphan Pheuyavong.

The transfer proceeded in stages. On 16 June 2025, at a conference in Vientiane chaired by Minister Suansavanh Viyaket, the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism announced the transfer of press management functions for five entities: the Press Department, the Lao News Agency, Lao National Television, Lao National Radio and the Lao Press in Foreign Languages, publisher of the Vientiane Times. A formal handover ceremony followed on 23 June at the Party Central Committee’s Administration Office, at which the heads of the transferred organisations initially retained their positions. On 8 July 2025, Khamphan Pheuyavong and Culture and Tourism Minister Suansavanh Viyaket signed the memorandum that formalised the transfer of media oversight, together with personnel, budgets and assets.

The transferred structure comprises one department and four first-level technical units totalling 42 divisions, of which 13 belong to LNTV, the largest share of any transferred body.

The change formed part of a wider restructuring that reduced the number of ministries from 17 to 13 and renamed the supervising ministry the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, removing media from its remit entirely.

Leadership is politically appointed, with senior roles filled by figures aligned with the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. Simmany Keokaen was confirmed as LNTV Director General at the time of the June 2025 transfer. State Media Monitor did not independently confirm the current holder from reliable 2026 sources; a February 2026 report sourced to KPL instead identified Keokaen as Director General of Lao National Radio. LNTV’s own website still describes the broadcaster as sitting under the former ministry, and its management information cannot safely resolve the question.

According to internal sources at LNTV interviewed for State Media Monitor in May 2024, editorial and administrative decision-making is strongly influenced, if not dictated, by party directives, and a large share of newsroom staff are Party members or affiliates.

The Party’s own leadership was renewed during the review period. The 12th National Congress of the LPRP met in Vientiane from 6 to 8 January 2026, attended by 835 delegates. It elected a 73-member Central Committee with 15 alternates and a 13-member Politburo, and re-elected Thongloun Sisoulith as General Secretary. The Congress adopted the Party’s third Political Programme and the 10th National Socio-Economic Development Plan for 2026–2030. LNTV’s supervising body is an organ of that Central Committee.

Source of funding and budget

LNTV does not publish financial statements or current operational accounts, reflecting the wider opacity of the Lao media sector. Local media experts and journalists interviewed for State Media Monitor in December 2023 described the broadcaster as entirely state-funded.

At the June 2025 transfer ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Kikeo Khaykhamphithoune called on the transferred state media organisations to develop additional revenue streams and work towards greater financial self-sufficiency in order to reduce their burden on the state budget. State Media Monitor identified no evidence that this had materially altered LNTV’s reliance on public funding by August 2026.

Chinese support has played a substantial role in capital investment. The Channel 3 high-definition conversion was financed by a Chinese government grant, and LNTV is a partner in Lao Digital TV, a joint venture with Yunnan Television and Lao Technology Development that began trial operations in November 2007. One LNTV insider estimated in 2018 that Chinese funding had reached up to 40% of the station’s total expenditure in certain years. That figure is a single anecdotal estimate rather than an audited proportion, and State Media Monitor did not identify documentary confirmation of it or of its continuation.

On the State Media Matrix funding test, the condition is met. The absence of a current public breakdown does not create a plausible case that state funding has fallen below the Matrix threshold; it means the “entirely state-funded” description should be read as interview evidence dated 2023 rather than as an audited 2026 figure. Chinese capital grants are foreign state support for specific projects rather than a substitute for domestic public funding.

Editorial independence

LNTV operates in one of the most tightly controlled media environments in Southeast Asia, and its editorial autonomy is minimal.

The supervisory arrangement changed materially in 2025. Earlier State Media Monitor reporting described LNTV’s content as subject to prior oversight by the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, with senior editors consulting ministry officials to align programming with government narratives. That ministry no longer has any media remit. Editorial supervision now rests with the Commission for Information and Education of the Party Central Committee, whose function is expressly the Party’s information, ideological and educational work. The practical effect is a shortening of the chain: content direction comes from the Party’s ideological apparatus directly rather than through a government department.

The new arrangement was reinforced explicitly in 2026. Ahead of Laos’s first National Media Conference in July, Khamphan Pheuyavong, head of the Commission for Information and Education, described the media as the Party’s voice for disseminating its policies and guidelines, shaping public understanding and countering hostile narratives. The conference itself was organised around strengthening Party leadership of the media sector, with senior Party figures describing media as a strategic component of political and ideological work and a channel for disseminating Party policy, state law and national development strategy. It concluded on 15 July by adopting a roadmap intended to strengthen Party leadership over the media through 2030.

Critical or dissenting voices are systematically excluded, and journalists who deviate from the official line risk disciplinary action or prosecution. The Lao Constitution guarantees freedom of expression while prohibiting media from harming national interests and traditional culture, and a broadly worded penal-code provision permits the imprisonment of journalists who criticise the government, extended in 2014 to internet users. No statutory safeguard for journalistic independence was identified, and no independent regulatory authority overseeing the broadcaster’s editorial conduct was identified.

AI and digital policy

LNTV distributes content through terrestrial and satellite transmission, lntv.gov.la and associated digital channels.

Artificial intelligence became an explicit priority in Laos’s wider media-modernisation programme during 2026, with the Commission for Information and Education promoting AI skills and digital transformation, and the First National Media Conference in July discussing the application of AI in media operations. The Lao Journalists Association separately called in July for media ethics and legal protections to be updated in response to AI.

State Media Monitor nevertheless identified no publicly accessible LNTV-specific editorial policy governing generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, automated production, human verification or the disclosure of AI-generated content to audiences, and no binding national framework establishing state-media-specific editorial standards for such use.

Classification rationale

LNTV remains classified State-Controlled (SC), meeting all three conditions of the State Media Matrix.

It is predominantly state-funded. LNTV publishes no current accounts, but interview evidence obtained for State Media Monitor describes it as entirely state-funded, and no evidence was identified establishing a non-state majority. Party and government leaders called in June 2025 for state media to develop additional revenue streams, but no evidence was identified that this had materially altered LNTV’s reliance on public funding.

It is state-owned and state-governed, and since 2025 in an unusually direct form. LNTV is not a corporation or statutory body but a state broadcasting institution whose personnel, budget and assets were formally transferred by memorandum to the Commission for Information and Education of the Party Central Committee, within which it constitutes 13 divisions. Its leadership is politically appointed and a large share of its newsroom are Party members or affiliates.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state control, and the 2026 evidence for this is unusually direct. The head of the supervising Commission publicly described the media as the Party’s voice for disseminating its policies and countering hostile narratives; the country’s first National Media Conference was organised around strengthening Party leadership of the sector; and it concluded by adopting a roadmap to extend that model through 2030. No statutory safeguard, editorial charter, ombudsman or independent regulator was identified.

The 2025 transfer merits particular note. LNTV did not move from independence towards control; it was State-Controlled throughout. What changed is the nature of the controlling authority, from a government ministry to the ruling party’s information and ideological organ, with the ministry’s media remit abolished altogether. The classification is unchanged because the Matrix does not distinguish between party and state control in a one-party system, but the institutional form of that control is now more direct than at any point in the period reviewed, and the Party has stated the intention explicitly.

August 2026