Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV)

Myanmar Radio and Television is the state broadcasting service, operating under the direct control of the Ministry of Information. According to the Ministry’s own institutional history, Rangoon Radio began broadcasting on 15 February 1946 under the name Burma Broadcasting Service, following experimental transmissions in 1936 and 1937 that did not constitute a national broadcasting service. Colour television broadcasting began on 1 November 1980. The organisation was renamed the Myanma Television and Radio Department in January 1991 and Myanma Radio and Television in November 1997, and its 80th anniversary was marked on 15 February 2026.

MRTV operates national and regional radio and television services, including a channel broadcasting in ethnic languages, and maintains an international service, Myanmar International Television. It also provides transmission and distribution infrastructure used by privately operated broadcasters: Forever Group’s MRTV-4 and Channel 7 are among private services carried through MRTV platforms, and should be distinguished from MRTV’s own channels. At the 80th anniversary ceremony the Prime Minister launched extended broadcasting of three further private channels and a private DTH service through MRTV’s DVB-T2 and DTH systems.

Media assets

Television: MRTV HD, MRTV News, MRTV NRC (National Races Channel), MRTV Farmers’, MRTV Parliament, MRTV Sports and MRTV Entertainment, launched in February 2025.

International: MITV (Myanmar International Television), broadcasting in English.

Radio: Myanmar Radio, Thapyay Radio, an English-language service, and programming in 17 ethnic languages. An MRTV Radio App was launched in February 2025.

Ownership and governance

MRTV is wholly owned and operated by the Ministry of Information and functions as a department within the government apparatus. It has no separate legal personality, no independent governing board and no charter.

The Television and Radio Broadcasting Law of 2015 recognises public-service, commercial, community and government-owned broadcasting as separate categories; it does not itself provide for MRTV’s conversion into a public-service broadcaster. A separate Public Service Media Bill, intended to transform government-controlled media, was withdrawn in 2015 and never enacted. The Ministry of Information’s own organisational material nevertheless continues to identify gradual reform of MRTV towards public-service broadcasting as an institutional objective. No such transformation has occurred.

Earlier institutional documentation described MRTV’s senior management as a Director-General, two Deputy Directors-General and seven Directors, forming an internal management board chaired by the Director-General, with the Director-General appointed by the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary. Current Ministry material continues to identify seven functional divisions. MRTV is headed by Director-General U Ye Naing. SMM identified no independent governing board and no statutory appointment safeguard.

The ministry above it changed leadership entirely during the review period. Maung Maung Ohn served as Union Minister for Information from August 2021 until 16 March 2026, when he became Deputy Speaker of the Pyithu Hluttaw. U Htein Lin holds the post as of April 2026. Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun, who had served as Deputy Minister of Information and as the military authorities’ principal spokesperson since February 2021, was reported removed from his senior military information role on 27 March 2026 and did not continue in the Information Ministry under the government formed in April.

The new minister’s engagement with the broadcaster indicates the terms on which it is understood. On an inspection visit to MRTV in Yangon in June 2026, reported by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, he addressed staff on the broadcaster’s role in communicating government policies and public information alongside educational, cultural and entertainment content, and encouraged MRTV to develop further as a quality public media institution. The visit formed part of a broader inspection tour of state-owned media organisations and publishing facilities under the ministry.

The 2025–26 political restructuring

The governing structure under which MRTV operated for four years was dismantled and rebuilt during this cycle, and the broadcaster’s role in that process is the most significant new evidence in this profile.

On 31 July 2025 the National Defence and Security Council ended the nationwide state of emergency imposed after the February 2021 coup, following seven extensions, and dissolved the State Administration Council and the administrative bodies formed after the takeover. A caretaker Union Government was formed under Prime Minister Nyo Saw, alongside a new State Security and Peace Commission chaired by Min Aung Hlaing, who remained acting president and commander-in-chief. Emergency rule and martial law were simultaneously reimposed for 90 days across 63 townships in nine of the country’s fourteen regions and states. These announcements were carried by MRTV, and it was through MRTV’s nightly news bulletin that the election timetable was disclosed.

Elections were held in three phases from 28 December 2025 through January 2026. The Pyithu Hluttaw convened on 16 March 2026 and the Amyotha Hluttaw on 18 March. Min Aung Hlaing was elected President by the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw on 3 April, and on 10 April a 34-member Union Government comprising the President, two Vice-Presidents, 30 Union Ministers and the Union Government secretary assumed authority; the State Security and Peace Commission was dissolved the same day. The International Crisis Group assesses the resulting administration as military consolidation rather than transition, noting that loyalists occupy the key positions, with the former prime minister and a USDP state chair installed as first and second vice presidents. Nothing in this sequence altered MRTV’s status, funding or editorial subordination.

Source of funding and budget

SMM identified no publicly available stand-alone MRTV annual budget, audited financial statements, operating figures or staffing numbers.

Assessments obtained for SMM from local media professionals and researchers interviewed in May 2024 and February 2025 describe the broadcaster as relying almost exclusively on state funding. MRTV has explored limited commercial advertising as a supplementary stream, but those efforts have produced negligible returns and remain tightly regulated. The absence of published financial reporting stands in marked contrast to international standards for public service media, and SMM identified no evidence of any change during the review period.

Editorial independence

MRTV has no meaningful editorial autonomy. Its news agenda and programming decisions are directed by Ministry of Information officials, with no institutional separation between state interests and journalistic output, and independent observers describe its content as indistinguishable from official state communications.

The broadcaster publishes a set of internal editorial documents on its website: MRTV Broadcasting Guidelines, MPedia – Knowledge Book for MRTV News Reporting, and the Fundamental Code of Broadcasting Ethics and Code of Conduct, alongside the Broadcasting Law and its rules and regulations. SMM identified no enforcement mechanism attached to these documents and no body, internal or external, empowered to adjudicate compliance with them.

No independent external oversight mechanism exists, and the record here is precise. The Television and Radio Broadcasting Law passed in 2015, under a democratically elected government, established the Broadcasting Council as an independent authority to supervise television and radio, with provisions promoting transparency in the election of council members and protection of tenure. Amendments in 2021 extended the law’s definition of broadcasting to cover “any other technology” used to access audio-visual media, bringing online distribution within scope, and raised penalties from fines to prison terms of three to five years. On 16 November 2023, SAC Law No. 56/2023, signed by Min Aung Hlaing, redefined the term “council” and revoked the sections governing it, so that members are appointed by the military authorities and the earlier appointment and tenure safeguards are suspended. The Centre for Law and Democracy, which had welcomed the 2015 Act for establishing a robustly independent regulator, assessed that the amendments deprived it of democratic legitimacy. No national statute enshrines MRTV’s editorial independence.

The terms of the relationship are stated by the government itself. At MRTV’s 80th anniversary ceremony on 15 February 2026, Prime Minister Nyo Saw told staff that they must strive to serve as a reliable fourth estate providing national service for the benefit of the country and its people, and in the same address said that opposing media inside and outside the country were using various methods to spread propaganda and destabilise the State. A video presented at the 79th anniversary the previous year was titled “State Media Which is Striving for the sake of the State and the People”.

MRTV’s role in the 2025–26 electoral process was operational rather than journalistic: the election timetable, the accompanying martial-law declarations and the formation of successive governments were disseminated through its bulletins as government announcements.

AI and digital policy

MRTV has invested visibly in distribution and platform capacity, expanding HD channels across Yangon, Nay Pyi Taw and Sagaing through its DVB-T2 system, launching the MRTV Entertainment Channel and an MRTV Radio App in February 2025, and operating a convergence newsroom.

SMM identified no publicly accessible MRTV policy governing generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, automated production, human verification or disclosure of AI-generated content to audiences, and no national framework establishing such standards for Myanmar’s state media. Official Ministry reporting in February 2025 did, however, record officials observing MRTV testing AI technology alongside its convergence newsroom operations and multilingual broadcasting. SMM identified no public information establishing the extent to which that testing has subsequently developed into routine editorial deployment.

The wider information environment is shaped by restriction rather than by technology policy. Internet shutdowns, platform blocking and the extension of broadcasting law to online distribution are the dominant features of the digital landscape, and the constraints on Myanmar’s media are imposed through connectivity and law rather than through content-production standards.

Classification rationale

MRTV is classified State-Controlled (SC), meeting all three conditions of the State Media Matrix. It is an unambiguous State-Controlled case.

It is predominantly state-funded. No budget is published, but interview evidence describes near-total dependence on state funding, with commercial advertising producing negligible returns under tight regulation. No independent revenue base was identified.

It is state-owned and state-governed. MRTV is a department of the Ministry of Information with no separate legal personality, no independent board and no charter. The 2015 Broadcasting Law treats government-owned broadcasting as a category distinct from public-service broadcasting, and the Public Service Media Bill that would have transformed state media was withdrawn in 2015. The Broadcasting Council that might have provided external regulation lost its independence by amendment in November 2023.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state control. Programming and news decisions are directed by ministry officials, the published internal codes carry no identified enforcement mechanism, and no statutory safeguard exists. The Prime Minister’s 2026 anniversary address and the Information Minister’s June 2026 remarks both frame the broadcaster’s purpose in terms of national service and the communication of government policy.

The 2025–26 period is instructive precisely because so much changed around the broadcaster and nothing changed within it. A state of emergency was lifted, a governing council dissolved, elections held, a parliament seated and a president installed. MRTV’s ownership, funding, governance and editorial subordination were unaffected. The institutional reforms altered the form through which power is exercised in Myanmar without altering the instrument through which it is communicated.

August 2026