Demiroren Holding

Demirören Holding is a Turkish conglomerate that owns, through Demirören Medya, the newspapers Hürriyet, Milliyet and Posta, the television channels Kanal D and CNN Türk and the news agency Demirören Haber Ajansı (DHA). The group entered the media sector in 2011 with the purchase of Milliyet and Vatan and in 2018 acquired Doğan Media Group. The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026 describes Demirören Media as the largest media organisation in Turkey. The group’s website names Yıldırım Demirören as its chairman.

Media assets

Newspapers: Hürriyet, Milliyet, Posta, Hürriyet Daily News and Fanatik.

Magazine: Milliyet Sanat.

Television: Kanal D, CNN Türk, Euro D, TeVe2, Dream TV and Dream Türk.

Radio: Radyo D and CNN Türk Radyo.

Digital: Vatan (gazetevatan.com), Hürriyet.de, Bigpara, Skorer and Uzmanpara.

Broadcasting platform: D-Smart.

News agency: Demirören Haber Ajansı (DHA).

Ownership and governance

In April 2011 Doğan Group agreed to sell Milliyet and Vatan to DK Gazetecilik ve Yayıncılık, a joint venture of the Demirören and Karacan groups, for USD 48 million and USD 26 million. On 6 April 2018 Doğan Holding signed the sale of its media companies to Demirören Medya Yatırımları for USD 916 million in cash. The sale covered eight Doğan companies, including Hürriyet Gazetecilik, Doğan Gazetecilik, Doğan TV Holding and Doğan Haber Ajansı, and Doğan’s statement of March 2018 listed the companies publishing Posta and Fanatik and operating Kanal D and CNN Türk. Founder Erdoğan Demirören died on 8 June 2018.

According to the Media Ownership Monitor of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Demirören family owns the group, and Yıldırım Demirören, Fikret Tayfun Demirören and Meltem Oktay each hold 26.39 per cent. These are historical figures: the page was last changed in December 2021, and its note says that the shareholder structure was not updated after Erdoğan Demirören’s death, so their current validity could not be confirmed. One of the three, Fikret Tayfun Demirören, was declared bankrupt by the Istanbul 1st Commercial Court on 18 December 2025; no source reported the effect on his shareholding.

Hürriyet Gazetecilik ve Matbaacılık, the publisher of Hürriyet, is listed on Borsa Istanbul. Its financial statements for 30 June 2026 describe Demirören Medya Yatırımları as the controlling shareholder, which held 81.21 per cent after a 2022 tender offer, and put the free float at 18.74 per cent. Ahmet Hakan was named editor-in-chief of Hürriyet in November 2019 and was still described as such in May 2025. Vatan ended its print edition on 31 October 2018 and continues online. No sale of the group’s media assets had been announced or confirmed by 23 October 2026.

Source of funding and budget

Part of the sale price of USD 916 million was reportedly financed by Ziraat Bank. Reports put the loan at USD 675 million (T24, as relayed by the Stockholm Center for Freedom), about USD 700 million (Bloomberg, citing sources) and USD 800 million (Reuters). Duvar reported that a Court of Accounts report did not name Demirören but that the 5 April 2018 start date of the credit relationship identified the borrower, and that the debt reached about USD 920 million on 31 December 2022, with arrears above USD 25 million. In December 2025 BirGün reported that a Court of Accounts audit report submitted to Parliament put the bank’s receivable from Demirören Holding under this loan at TRY 33.91 billion and that the holding had not followed the payment plans; the article gave no reference date for the figure.

In June 2021 Sedat Peker alleged in a video that none of a USD 750 million Ziraat loan had been repaid. Ziraat’s general manager told a parliamentary committee in June 2021 that the loans of the company in question were monitored as live accounts, and a written answer in 2023 said TRY 586 million had been collected since restructuring. Separately, Demirören Holding said in May 2023 that it had paid banks USD 1.3 billion since 2020; that statement concerned payments to banks in general, not this loan. In May 2024 Hürriyet sold properties to Ziraat for about TRY 1.29 billion in cash.

Hürriyet Gazetecilik, the publisher of Hürriyet, reported audited consolidated revenue of TRY 1,218.5 million and a consolidated net loss of TRY 830.0 million for 2025, expressed in purchasing power at 31 December 2025. For the first half of 2026 it reported consolidated revenue of TRY 651.2 million and a net loss of TRY 1.09 billion, expressed in purchasing power at 30 June 2026 and subject to a limited review, in a KAP filing of 17 August 2026. The two sets of figures cover different periods and reference dates and are not directly comparable. They are the publisher’s results, not those of the whole group; no consolidated accounts for Demirören Medya or Demirören Holding were identified.

According to a report of the Press Advertising Agency (BİK) obtained by DW, the Demirören media group received TRY 33.2 million in official advertising in 2020, including TRY 13.4 million for Hürriyet and TRY 9.9 million each for Posta and Milliyet. About 78 per cent of the roughly TRY 182 million distributed to 30 national newspapers went to pro-government titles. No per-newspaper figures for later years were identified.

Editorial independence

When the 2018 sale was announced, RSF‘s Turkey representative Erol Önderoğlu said that it meant “the death of pluralism and independent journalism in Turkey’s mainstream media”. Duvar wrote in 2019 that many journalists and editors as well as the ombudsman were fired or forced to leave after the sale.

Hasan Cemal left Milliyet in March 2013 and Can Dündar was laid off in August 2013, two years after the Demirören purchase; Turkish Minute later described both as fired. In March 2014 a recording attributed to Prime Minister Erdoğan was leaked in which he is heard telling Erdoğan Demirören that what to do about a Milliyet story on talks with Abdullah Öcalan was his decision, with the words “It is at your discretion. Do what is necessary”, and criticising the journalists responsible, according to Bianet, which describes the recordings as alleged.

After the 2018 takeover columnist Taha Akyol left Hürriyet, and Medyascope reported that its ombudsman Faruk Bildirici, who had worked at Hürriyet for 27 years, was forced to leave in March 2019, adding that management reportedly told him it no longer wanted to work with him. In October 2019 Hürriyet dismissed journalists, and in December 2021 a labour court ordered the reinstatement of 22 of the 45 dismissed, finding that they had been dismissed over their union activities.

CNN Türk cut off a reply by Ekrem İmamoğlu in March 2019 to switch to a speech by Erdoğan, and the presenter said that the programme was pre-recorded. In February 2020 the Republican People’s Party (CHP) boycotted CNN Türk, accusing it of distorting reality, although Bianet’s report of the announcement cited no specific broadcasts or airtime figures. On 25 March 2025, repeating his boycott call, CHP leader Özgür Özel said, as Medyascope reported it, that Kanal D and CNN Türk did not practise journalism.

The European Commission’s 2025 report found that media ownership in Türkiye remains highly concentrated in the hands of few economic players close to the government, and noted the selective allocation of public advertising funds.

In May 2024 the DHA reporter Rojda Altıntaş alleged that she was pressured by the outlet’s ownership over a story on a fatal traffic accident, and DHA’s general manager said that she remained a DHA employee and that no action had been or would be taken against her. She resigned on 10 May. On 29 June 2026 Medyascope reported that the duties of Kanal D’s main news anchor Deniz Bayramoğlu had been ended; Kanal D announced on X that Aytaç Can would present its main news bulletin in his place, and Bayramoğlu confirmed his departure; no reason was announced, and the report does not establish a motive.

Hürriyet’s corporate site publishes the Demirören Group’s 2018 publishing principles for the written press and an employee code of conduct revised in June 2018. Neither provides for an ombudsman or reader representative, and neither contains a provision on AI. No successor to Hürriyet’s ombudsman, or comparable independent mechanism at that newspaper, was identified after Faruk Bildirici’s tenure ended in March 2019. Kanal D’s website names a viewer and listener representative, Meryem Güngör, which does not by itself show independent editorial oversight.

AI and digital policy

No published policy on artificial intelligence (AI) by Demirören Holding, Demirören Medya, Hürriyet, Kanal D, CNN Türk or DHA was identified. In December 2025 Demirören Medya announced an AI-focused transformation programme with Microsoft and D Tech Cloud, covering content production, data management and security, and its chief technology officer Serhat İnce called an architecture based on AI, data and security unavoidable for the future of media. In February 2026 CNN Türk said that it presents news with an AI-supported smart screen system for maps and data graphics.

The Turkish Journalists’ Association’s Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities, updated on 29 April 2025, states that media organisations should develop publishing principles on AI. Article 18 of the Press Council’s Professional Principles states that AI supports the media and does not replace it, that responsibility for media content remains with journalists, that audiences have a right to know when and how AI-derived information is used, and that AI-assisted content must meet the same verification and ethical standards as other content. These are professional standards; no source identified shows that Demirören outlets apply them. The Türkiye Artificial Intelligence Action Plan 2026–2030, put into force by Presidential Circular 2026/9, published in the Official Gazette on 18 August 2026, was described by DHA as replacing the 2021–2025 national strategy.

Classification rationale

Demirören Holding is classified CaPr because it is a privately owned group that has become closely tied to the state. Its 2018 purchase of Doğan Media Group was part-financed by state-owned Ziraat Bank, and reporting on the Court of Accounts audits describes a restructured debt that remained large, with payment plans reportedly not followed. RSF described the sale as ending pluralism in the mainstream media. A 2014 recording attributed to Erdoğan, which Bianet describes as alleged, concerns his telling Erdoğan Demirören that the handling of a Milliyet story was at his discretion. Editorial alignment is reported by the European Commission for media ownership close to the government and selective public advertising.

October 2026