Voice of Vietnam (VOV)

Voice of Vietnam is the national radio broadcaster and the first national press agency established by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, first transmitting on 7 September 1945, five days after the declaration of independence. Since 1 April 2026 it is no longer an agency of the government: under Politburo Decision 16-QĐ/TW it became a public non-business unit of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Committee, placed under the direct and regular leadership of the Politburo and the Secretariat. Its Director General is concurrently a Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission. VOV was transferred on the same day and by the same mechanism as Vietnam Television and Vietnam News Agency.

Media assets

Radio: VOV1 news and current affairs, VOV2 culture and society, VOV3 literature, arts and music, VOV4 ethnic minority languages, VOV5 external broadcasting, and VOV Giao thông, the national traffic service

Digital and print: the VOV Electronic Newspaper, which also publishes the print edition Tiếng nói Việt Nam, and VTC News

Structure: 23 subordinate units at departmental level, including six regional bureaux for the Northeast, Northwest, Central Region, Central Highlands, Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta, a Production and Archive Centre, a Technical Centre, an Advertising and Media Services Centre, a research and development centre, and two colleges of radio and television. VOV also maintains overseas bureaux, which Decision 16 places below departmental level

VOV’s television arm no longer exists. VOVTV and the VTC television channels ceased broadcasting on 15 January 2025 as part of the national media restructuring, and VTC’s functions and tasks were transferred to Vietnam Television. VTC News survives as an electronic newspaper within VOV. Decision 16-QĐ/TW lists VOV1 through VOV5 and the traffic service among the broadcaster’s radio services.

Ownership and governance

On 25 March 2026 the second plenum of the 14th Central Committee adopted Resolution 03-NQ/TW, agreeing to move VOV, Vietnam Television, Vietnam News Agency and the two national academies out of government. On 30 March the Politburo issued Decision 16-QĐ/TW setting out VOV’s functions, tasks and structure. It took effect on 1 April, and a ceremony at Party headquarters that morning transferred the five bodies and moved their party organisations from the Government Party Committee to the Party Committee of Central Party Agencies.

VOV was a government agency reporting directly to the government rather than a subordinate body of the ministry. Decree 03/2018 was replaced by Decree 92/2022/NĐ-CP, which in turn was replaced by Decree 46/2025/NĐ-CP from 1 March 2025. The Ministry of Information and Communications was itself merged into the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2025. VOV remained a government agency until its transfer to the Party’s Central Committee on 1 April 2026.

Decision 16-QĐ/TW states VOV’s position without ambiguity. It is a public non-business unit of the Central Committee under the direct and regular leadership of the Politburo and Secretariat, described as the national radio broadcaster and the multi-platform, multilingual key press and communications organ of the Party and State, carrying official Party and State information and holding a core role in ideological and cultural work.

Leadership comprises a Director General and no more than four deputies. The Director General heads the broadcaster, is concurrently Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission, and is responsible to the Politburo and the Secretariat for its organisation, management and results. Đỗ Tiến Sỹ, a member of the Party Central Committee who first became Director General in June 2021, was appointed and assigned by the Politburo on 1 April 2026 to serve as Director General while concurrently holding the post of Deputy Head of the commission. VOV reports to the Politburo and Secretariat periodically and on demand through the Party’s organs and the Central Office.

The wider political context is one of consolidation. Tô Lâm, General Secretary since August 2024, was re-elected at the 14th National Congress in January 2026 and resumed the state presidency on 7 April 2026, when Lê Minh Hưng became Prime Minister.

Source of funding and budget

Decision 16-QĐ/TW makes VOV a first-level budget estimating unit of the central budget, managing its own finances and assets and deciding on its own investment projects. Where competent authorities assign political tasks, the budget guarantees the funding for those tasks. VOV operates a financial autonomy mechanism and may propose a specific mechanism of its own where its circumstances require one. It also exercises the rights of a state owner over enterprises in which public capital has been invested.

Commercial activity runs through the Advertising and Media Services Centre and VOV’s electronic press operations, but VOV has not published a consolidated breakdown separating budget support from commercial income. At a finance and personnel conference held from 4 to 6 March 2026, VOV itself described its level of financial autonomy as modest and said that it remained heavily dependent on the state budget. Its leadership also acknowledged that several investment projects had been rescaled because available budget allocations did not meet requirements, identifying greater financial autonomy and infrastructure modernisation as major challenges.

VOV publishes budget disclosure documents on its corporate portal, including annual settlement figures. In the public financial disclosures reviewed by State Media Monitor, no consolidated statement was identified establishing the ratio between state budget support and commercial revenue. State Media Monitor therefore makes no estimate of that ratio.

Editorial independence

State Media Monitor identified no statutory guarantee of editorial independence for VOV, and Decision 16-QĐ/TW instead makes its political and ideological responsibilities explicit. Among the tasks it assigns are protecting the ideological foundation of the Party and refuting the erroneous and hostile views and distortions of hostile, opportunist and reactionary forces across radio, digital media and cyberspace; orienting public opinion on important, complex and sensitive matters; and countering corruption, waste, negativity, “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”. VOV decides its own content, programming and daily broadcast hours, and directs the press outlets beneath it, but does so within Party regulations and under the political and ideological supervision of the Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission, of which its own Director General is a deputy head.

The 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 expressly regulates press activity and content channels in cyberspace, adds permitted revenue sources for press organisations, and broadens compulsory state access to journalistic sources. In addition to prosecutors and chief judges, the heads of the Ministry of Public Security’s investigative agency and of provincial police investigative agencies may issue written demands for disclosure to serve investigation, prosecution and adjudication, and the new law removes the previous restriction limiting such disclosure to very serious and especially serious crimes. The state press management authority may require violating content to be removed. The 2025 Cybersecurity Law replaced both the 2018 Cybersecurity Law, in force since 2019, and the 2015 Law on Cyberinformation Security.

AI and digital policy

Artificial intelligence is written into VOV’s governing instrument. Decision 16-QĐ/TW directs the broadcaster to prioritise digital transformation, innovation and the application of science and technology, specifying artificial intelligence, in order to raise the quality of its output and widen its audience. Among the Southeast Asian outlets reviewed by State Media Monitor as of August 2026, no other governing instrument was identified that explicitly mandates the adoption of artificial intelligence. The same decision assigns VOV responsibility for building and operating a national emergency response information network on radio.

Vietnam became the first Southeast Asian country to bring a standalone AI law into force. The National Assembly passed the Law on Artificial Intelligence, number 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. Implementation detail followed in Decree 142/2026/NĐ-CP, effective 1 May 2026.

A separate Press Law implementing measure, Decree 237/2026/NĐ-CP, effective 1 July 2026, imposes media-specific duties on the use of AI. 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.

Classification rationale

VOV remains classified State-Controlled Media (SC).

It is Party-operated and Party-governed, with the qualification that in a single-party state the distinction between party and state institutions is formal rather than substantive. VOV has legal-person status as a press agency, but it has no shareholders and Decision 16 provides for no governing board. Until 1 April 2026 it was a government agency; it is now a public service unit of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, a change that moves it still closer to the centre of political authority. The Director General is appointed by the Politburo, reports to the Politburo and Secretariat, and concurrently serves as a Deputy Head of the Party commission that supervises his broadcaster’s political and ideological work. Decision 16 provides for no independent appointing body, protected tenure or independent external oversight mechanism.

Its editorial agenda is directed by the state. The governing decision assigns it the tasks of protecting the Party’s ideological foundation, refuting hostile viewpoints and orienting public opinion, and subordinate press outlets are directed by VOV in turn. No statute, charter or oversight body offers any counterweight.

On funding, VOV publishes no breakdown comparable with the detailed financial data available for some other national broadcasters. Its governing decision guarantees budget funding for assigned political tasks, and VOV itself stated in March 2026 that its degree of financial autonomy remained modest and that it depended heavily on the state budget. State Media Monitor identified no evidence in the public financial disclosures reviewed of a predominant independent commercial revenue stream, and retains the classification on that basis, while noting that the precise revenue ratio is not established and that the financial autonomy mechanism envisaged by Decision 16-QĐ/TW may alter the balance.

August 2026