Qazaqstan Radio and Television Corporation (RTRK)

The Qazaqstan Radio and Television Corporation is Kazakhstan’s largest state broadcasting structure and explicitly defines its role as implementing the information policy of the state. Its institutional history begins with Kazakh radio broadcasting, whose first republican transmission took place from Orenburg on 1 October 1921, and with the country’s first national television service, established in 1958. RTRK currently operates four republican television channels, 14 regional television services and a group of national radio and digital services.

Media assets

Television: Qazaqstan, QAZSPORT, Balapan and Abai TV at republican level, together with fourteen regional television companies

Radio: Qazaq Radiosy, Shalqar, Astana and Classic. Astana Radio remains included in RTRK’s current state assignment, although it is not foregrounded alongside the other radio brands on the corporation’s current English-language corporate page

Digital: qazaqstan.tv and dedicated sites for the national television and radio services and regional channels, alongside mobile and social-media services. In August 2025 RTRK launched ten thematic FAST and web television channels under the QAZTV umbrella, drawing on current and archival material

Abai TV remains an active RTRK channel. It broadcasts in Kazakh and Russian and is included in both the corporation’s current asset listing and its 2025 state assignment.

Qazaq Radiosy broadcasts around the clock and serves audiences in Kazakhstan and neighbouring border regions. Shalqar is the service that temporarily suspended broadcasting in 1998 and resumed in 2002, initially in Almaty; it broadcasts exclusively in Kazakh.

Ownership and governance

RTRK is a joint-stock company wholly owned by the state. Its sole shareholder is the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The sole shareholder exercises the powers reserved to ownership under company law and the corporation’s charter; the Board of Directors is the governing body and the Management Board is responsible for day-to-day operations.

Board members are ultimately elected by decisions of the sole shareholder. The structure now includes independent directors, but there is no appointment role for parliament, audiences, employees or journalism organisations.

The board in office in August 2026 illustrates the continuing strength of executive influence. Its chairman is Yerlan Karin, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, elected by sole-shareholder decision in April 2026. Other members include Kanat Iskakov, First Vice-Minister of Culture and Information, and Nurmakhan Adilbekov, chairman of the Ministry of Finance’s State Property and Privatization Committee. Three members, Yersayin Ospanov, Elnura Abakanova and Aidana Abisheva, are designated independent directors; Abakanova and Abisheva were elected by the sole shareholder on 31 July 2026. Management Board chairman Ernur Burakhan also sits on the Board of Directors.

The Ministry adopted formal rules for selecting independent directors in July 2025, strengthening the corporate-governance component of the board. Their presence does not change the underlying appointment structure: the state remains the sole shareholder and retains the authority to elect the board.

Leadership of the executive changed on 18 August 2025, when Lyazzat Tanysbay ended her tenure after more than six years and Ernur Burakhan was appointed Chairman of the Management Board. Burakhan previously worked within RTRK as a journalist, presenter and regional executive and had headed the corporation’s Kazakh radio operations.

Source of funding and budget

RTRK is financed predominantly through public funding connected to a state assignment for carrying out Kazakhstan’s information policy, while also generating advertising and other commercial revenue.

The scale of public financing is substantial. Kazakhstan’s implementation of the 2025 to 2027 republican budget allocated KZT 31.349 billion in 2025 specifically for conducting state information policy through RTRK under the Ministry of Culture and Information’s state-information-order programme.

RTRK’s own published state-assignment record specifies the output attached to that financing. For 2025 it required at least 7,300 hours from Qazaqstan, 6,570 from QAZSPORT, 5,290 from Balapan, 6,205 from Abai TV, 15,330 across the fourteen regional television services, 8,704 from Qazaq Radiosy, 2,160 from Astana Radio and 6,570 each from Shalqar and Classic.

The assignment also extends beyond RTRK’s own channels. It required 1,121.5 hours of news, analytical, social-educational and entertainment programming to be produced and broadcast on First Channel Eurasia, together with 625 hours of licensed content from Russia’s Channel One for transmission on the same channel. The published assignment defines its final objective as ensuring population coverage by state information policy.

The arrangement continued in 2026. On 4 February 2026, the sole shareholder authorised a new contract between the Ministry of Culture and Information and RTRK for the performance of the state assignment to provide state information policy through the corporation. State Media Monitor did not establish a published monetary value for that 2026 contract.

RTRK also publishes audited financial statements, including consolidated and separate accounts for 2024. A simple current percentage splitting total income between state and commercial sources was not established for this review.

Historical data demonstrate the scale of public dependence. RTRK reported total income of KZT 26.16 billion in 2020, of which KZT 21.51 billion came from republican-budget programmes and KZT 2.40 billion from local budgets. Together, those public sources represented approximately 91.4 per cent of income, compared with KZT 2.05 billion from advertising and commercial activity and KZT 0.20 billion from other revenue.

Editorial independence

RTRK’s institutional mandate directly links the broadcaster to state information policy. The corporation describes itself as the national television and radio corporation that implements the information policy of the state, and the state assignment explicitly finances broadcasting intended to deliver that policy to the population.

The governance structure provides no institutional separation from the state comparable to an independently appointed public-media board. The Ministry of Culture and Information is the sole shareholder and elects the Board of Directors. The board is chaired by a senior Presidential Administration official and includes senior representatives of the ministries responsible for information policy and state property.

RTRK has nevertheless strengthened its internal professional rules. On 12 August 2025 it adopted and published a corporation-wide Editorial Standard, described as being based on international media principles. The standard addresses source verification, digital security, artificial intelligence, visual ethics, anonymity, personal data, social-media conduct and professional behaviour. Its accompanying training programme contains dedicated modules on neutrality, editorial independence, conflicts of interest, fact-checking, corrections, transparency and accountability.

These are relevant newsroom safeguards but are internal professional standards rather than structural guarantees of institutional editorial independence. They coexist with a formal state-information-policy mandate, state appointment of the governing structure and public financing tied to specified information-policy output.

AI and digital policy

RTRK has publicly documented both rules and operational use relating to artificial intelligence.

The corporation’s Editorial Standard, adopted in August 2025, explicitly includes working with artificial intelligence among the subjects governed by its professional and ethical framework. State Media Monitor did not identify a separate stand-alone RTRK AI policy specifying every requirement concerning model provenance, human verification or labelling.

Operational adoption is established. On 11 August 2025, RTRK launched ten thematic web television channels and said artificial intelligence was being used in their operation, with the technical processes fully automated.

Kazakhstan has also introduced binding national AI-disclosure rules. The Artificial Intelligence Act, adopted on 17 November 2025, requires users to be informed when goods, works or services are produced using AI. Synthetic AI output may be distributed only where it carries machine-readable marking and a visual or other perceptible warning.

A parallel amendment to the Mass Media Act applies the principle directly to media: mass-media products created using an AI system may be distributed only where the required information about AI use is provided in accordance with the Artificial Intelligence Act. The provisions entered into force in January 2026 after the statutory 60-day implementation period.

Classification rationale

RTRK remains classified State-Controlled Media (SC).

It is wholly state-owned and state-governed. The Ministry of Culture and Information is its sole shareholder and ultimately elects the Board of Directors. Although the board now includes three formally independent directors, its chairman is the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, two other members are senior state officials and the executive chairman also sits on the board. There is no independent public appointment mechanism capable of insulating governance from executive authority.

It is predominantly state-funded. Historical accounts show public budgets supplying more than 90 per cent of income, while the 2025 republican budget allocated KZT 31.349 billion specifically to conducting state information policy through RTRK. The same state-assignment structure continued under a new contract in 2026. Commercial revenue exists, but no evidence identified in the review indicates that it has displaced public financing as the corporation’s predominant source.

Its editorial agenda is structurally directed towards state information policy. RTRK itself defines implementation of state information policy as its institutional function, while its publicly financed assignment prescribes substantial volumes of output and explicitly measures success in terms of population coverage by that policy. The assignment extends to commissioned output for First Channel Eurasia and licensed Russian Channel One programming carried there.

The 2025 Editorial Standard introduces meaningful professional rules on neutrality, independence, fact-checking and transparency, but it does not alter the underlying ownership, appointment, financing and mandate structure. On the State Media Matrix, all three State-Controlled conditions remain met.

September 2026