Doğuş Holding

Doğuş Holding A.Ş. is a Turkish conglomerate founded in 1951 by Ayhan Şahenk. Its corporate profile lists automotive, hospitality and retail, real estate, energy, media and technology, with more than 250 companies and over 26,000 employees. Its media arm, Doğuş Yayın Grubu, includes the news channel NTV, the mixed-programming channel Star TV, the channel Eurostar, three radio stations and websites including the online video platform puhutv. Ferit F. Şahenk chairs the group and is its chief executive.

Media assets

Television: NTV, operated by NTV Radyo ve Televizyon Yayıncılığı A.Ş., according to its masthead; Star TV, operated by STARTV Medya Hizmetleri A.Ş., according to its masthead; and Eurostar, which broadcasts on topics concerning Turks living in Europe. Kral Pop TV is an internet television service operated by Kral Pop İnternet Televizyon Yayıncılığı A.Ş., according to the Kral masthead.

Radio: NTV Radyo, operated by NTV Radyo ve Televizyon Yayıncılığı A.Ş., according to its masthead; Kral FM, operated by Kral Müzik Medya Hizmetleri A.Ş.; and Kral Pop Radyo, operated by STARTV Medya Hizmetleri A.Ş., according to the Kral masthead.

Digital: ntv.com.tr, ntvspor.net, startv.com.tr, kralmuzik.com.tr and puhutv.com, as listed by Doğuş Yayın Grubu. puhutv is an on-demand video service whose media service provider is PUHUTV Yayıncılık A.Ş. and whose platform operator is PUHUTV Platform İşletmeciliği A.Ş., according to its masthead.

Ownership and governance

Ayhan Şahenk died on 2 April 2001, according to the group’s founder page. His son Ferit F. Şahenk took over leadership, and the group’s board page lists him as chairman and chief executive, with Hüsnü Akhan as deputy chairman.

A company information form that Doğuş Holding filed on the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP) lists Doğuş Yayın Grubu A.Ş. as a wholly owned subsidiary. In the same form, Ferit Faik Şahenk holds 32.36 percent of the holding, Filiz Şahenk 30.29 percent and Deniz Şahenk 17.16 percent, together 79.81 percent. The holding itself is recorded with 10.19 percent and group companies with the remainder. The Media Ownership Monitor, whose record was last changed in December 2021, reports that the Şahenk family owns 99.3 percent of Doğuş Yayın Grubu. Doğuş Holding holds 60.50 percent of the listed automotive company Doğuş Otomotiv, according to its second-quarter 2026 report.

Nafiz Karadere, who also sits on the holding’s board, chairs the Doğuş Yayın Grubu board. Nermin Yurteri is its board member responsible for content and general manager of NTV, and the NTV masthead names her as legal representative of the company.

Source of funding and budget

No financial statements for Doğuş Yayın Grubu, NTV, Star TV or Kral were identified. The group’s 2021 Global Compact report gives media revenue of USD 189 million for 2021 and total assets of USD 173 million at year-end, against group revenue of USD 5.749 billion, which makes media about 3.3 percent of revenue. The table gives no profit or advertising figures. A 2014 Freedom House report said that, in nearly all cases, Turkish holding companies with media outlets earn only a small fraction of their revenue from them, with the bulk of profits coming from other interests.

Doğuş GYO, a listed real estate investment company that names Doğuş Yayın Grubu as a related party, reported rent and other income of TRY 81.6 million from it in 2025, against TRY 67.4 million in 2024. Trade receivables from Doğuş Yayın Grubu stood at TRY 8.6 million at the end of 2025, and default interest on its overdue rent receivables came to TRY 6.8 million in 2025 and TRY 2.2 million in 2024.

No figure for public-sector advertising placed with NTV or Star TV in 2024–2026 was identified. Monitoring data for 2020, published by Serbestiyet in July 2021, placed NTV 11th in its ranking of channels by public-bank advertising.

Group companies, rather than the media outlets, have won public contracts. In December 2022, Cumhuriyet reported that a joint venture including Doğuş İnşaat had won a TRY 16.949 billion Yerköy–Kayseri high-speed rail tender from the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, and that President Erdoğan had met Ferit Şahenk on the day the tender notice was published. In December 2024, Garanti BBVA disclosed that lending banks would take over 49 percent of Galataport’s shares in a debt restructuring, with Doğuş Galataport holding a three-year repurchase right.

Editorial independence

The OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission’s 2023 report found that Kanal D, Show TV and Star covered Erdoğan and the People’s Alliance positively in both rounds, while maintaining a more balanced approach to the Nation Alliance campaign. The Media Ownership Monitor’s record for the group recounts leaked telephone conversations attributed to Yurteri, then NTV’s editor-in-chief, in which Yalçın Akdoğan, chief adviser to Erdoğan when he was prime minister, allegedly pressed her to have pro-government guests on air. Local journalists interviewed in 2023 and 2024 said that Doğuş outlets continue to avoid content critical of the government and follow editorial lines aligned with the priorities of the authorities.

On 29 March 2025, the CHP leader Özgür Özel said at a rally in Maltepe that NTV had not shown the event, and called for a boycott of NTV, of the products of NTV’s advertisers and of cars sold by the Doğuş Group, noting that the group also owns Star TV and Kral FM. No response from NTV or Doğuş was identified. In October 2025, NTV ended the employment of its Washington representative Hüseyin Günay after remarks he made about the Trump–Erdoğan meeting were recorded by an Associated Press camera, Medyascope reported.

Doğuş Yayın Grubu publishes broadcasting principles that include objectivity and fairness, and basic working principles that state that staff do not steer news politically or commercially and that violations are not accepted even on a manager’s instruction. The working principles contain no correction or right-of-reply rule, no clause on owner or advertiser influence and no external oversight. NTV’s masthead names Arzu Haksun Güvenilir as viewer representative. No statute protecting editorial decisions from ownership interference, or oversight body independent of the controlling owners, was identified.

AI and digital policy

No AI policy, AI-use disclosure or editorial AI guideline was identified for NTV, Star TV, Kral or Doğuş Yayın Grubu on the pages reviewed.

Classification policy

CaPr records SMM’s assessment of state-linked editorial control exercised through private ownership and management. Doğuş Holding’s ownership and board are private, so the classification rests on the group’s exposure to the state and on evidence of editorial alignment. The group’s working principles contain no correction or right-of-reply rule, no clause on owner or advertiser influence and no external oversight.

October 2026