Turkish Radio and Television (TRT)

Turkish Radio and Television (Türkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu, TRT) is the national public broadcaster of Turkey. It was established in 1964 by Law No. 359 and held a legal monopoly on broadcasting until Article 133 of the Constitution was amended on 8 July 1993 (Law No. 3913); the amended article provides that radio and television stations may be established and operated freely under conditions set by law. TRT’s corporate homepage lists 18 television, 19 radio and 10 digital broadcast entries, including the English-language news channel TRT World and channels in Kurdish and Arabic, while its radio overview gives 17 radio channels, counting the three Voice of Turkey feeds as one. Its streaming platform, tabii, was presented in May 2023. The Director General is Mehmet Zahid Sobacı.

Media assets

Television: TRT 1, TRT 2, TRT 3, TRT 4K, TRT Belgesel, TRT Haber, TRT Spor, TRT Spor Yıldız, TRT Müzik, TRT Çocuk, TRT Diyanet Çocuk, TRT Genç, TRT Türk, TRT Avaz, TRT Kurdi, TRT World, TRT Arabi and TRT Eba.

Radio: TRT Radyo 1, TRT FM, TRT Radyo 3, TRT Nağme, TRT Türkü, TRT Radyo Haber, TRT Antalya, TRT Çukurova, TRT GAP, TRT Radyo Kurdi, TRT Erzurum, TRT Trabzon, TRT Memleketim, TRT TSR, TRT VOT East, TRT VOT West, TRT VOT World, TRT World and TRT Arabi.

Digital: TRT Deutsch, TRT Russia, TRT Français, TRT Balkan, TRT Afrika, TRT Español, TRT VOT, TRT World, TRT Arabi and TRT Farsça. TRT World and TRT Arabi appear in more than one of these lists. The corporate page lists the tabii platform separately.

Ownership and governance

TRT is a public corporation governed by Law No. 2954 of 1983, which refers to the autonomy and impartiality of TRT guaranteed by the Constitution. Until 2018 the Council of Ministers appointed the Director General from three candidates nominated by the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). Under the 2008 amendment, the seven-member Board comprised the Director General, two deputy directors general appointed by the Council of Ministers, and four external members appointed by the Council of Ministers from eight candidates nominated by RTÜK.

Decree-Law No. 703 of 2 July 2018, published in the Official Gazette on 9 July 2018, repealed the articles of Law 2954 that set out this structure, and appointments to the Board and the post of Director General became dependent on the President, according to the journalists’ union DİSK Basın-İş. In July 2018 Presidential Circular 2018/2 made TRT an institution related to the Directorate of Communications of the Presidency and linked RTÜK to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. In July 2021 the Board Chair and the Director General became separate posts, and the Board grew from seven to nine members.

Sobacı was appointed Director General in July 2021, replacing İbrahim Eren. On 13 July 2025 a presidential decision reappointed him and replaced Board Chair Ahmet Albayrak with Prof. Ferudun Yılmaz. The EBU reported a further four-year term. The Board’s nine members, including the Director General, are listed on TRT’s website.

Law No. 7548, published in the Official Gazette on 30 May 2025, amended Law 2954. The law ties the Director General’s pay to the highest civil-servant salary, allows the Board to establish or acquire companies and partnerships, exempts the tender procedures of TRT and of companies it establishes, acquires or participates in, regardless of its shareholding, from the public procurement laws, provides for TRT’s procurement procedures to be regulated according to principles that include transparency and competition, and makes investigations of General Directorate personnel for job-related offences subject to the Director General’s permission.

Source of funding and budget

TRT’s revenue rests on Law No. 3093 of 1984, which provided for a stamp (bandrol) fee on electronic devices and a share of electricity sales, set at 2 per cent of the sales price when it was abolished. Law No. 7346, published on 25 December 2021, repealed the electricity share with effect from 1 January 2022. The President may set the bandrol rates, up to double the statutory rates, as a percentage of the device’s pre-tax price. Under a decision of 25 May 2022 the rates are 16 per cent for televisions and radios, 12 per cent for mobile phones and 4 per cent for tablets and computers; the rates for phones and for tablets and computers were raised, and those for televisions and radios were unchanged.

In 2023 revenue was TRY 21.14 billion, of which bandrol accounted for TRY 18.24 billion, or 86.3 per cent, and advertising and other income for 13.7 per cent, against 80.1 per cent from bandrol in 2022, according to a report of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). In 2024 revenue was TRY 30.89 billion, of which bandrol accounted for TRY 25.82 billion, or 83.6 per cent, according to Court of Accounts audits cited by BirGün. TRT’s net profit for 2025 was TRY 4.28 billion, according to BirGün. A bill submitted to Parliament on 8 April 2025 by the İYİ Party deputy Mustafa Cihan Paçacı would repeal Law 3093 and limit TRT to advertising, event ticket sales and commercial income; no enactment has been reported.

Editorial independence

In its report of 4 November 2025 the European Commission found that TRT’s coverage continued to heavily favour ruling parties, that RTÜK continued to lack independence, and that artists who had spoken against the arrest of mayors and supported boycott calls were dismissed from series on TRT. On 2 April 2025 Sobacı announced that an actress had been removed from the TRT 1 series Teşkilat after she backed a boycott call, saying her posts were incompatible with TRT’s institutional principles.

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) found that public broadcasters clearly favoured the ruling parties and their candidates in both rounds of the 2023 elections. Two RTÜK members nominated by the CHP, İlhan Taşcı and Tuncay Keser, reported 59 hours 11 minutes of live broadcasts relating to election rallies for the governing People’s Alliance on TRT Haber from 1 April to 1 May 2023, against 42 minutes 58 seconds for the opposition Nation Alliance. Keser said in May 2023 that TRT Haber devoted about a quarter of the day to documentary-style programmes that, classified as state commercials, amounted to free propaganda for the governing party. For 1 January to 10 February 2024 the same two members reported 1,945 minutes of live TRT Haber broadcast time for President Erdoğan and other governing-party politicians and mayoral candidates, against 25 minutes for the leader of the main opposition party. On 22 March 2025 Keser asked RTÜK to review TRT Haber’s coverage on 20 March of the investigation into the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

Sobacı told Parliament’s State Economic Enterprises Committee in early May 2025 that TRT, as the state’s television, airs the president’s activities minute by minute, called the opposition’s airtime comparisons perception management, and said that dictating how news is presented harms press freedom and TRT’s editorial independence. RTÜK, whose chair since October 2025 is Mehmet Daniş, has sanctioned opposition channels, including a 10-day broadcast suspension on Halk TV decided on 26 June 2025, which an administrative court stayed on 7 July.

AI and digital policy

No published TRT policy on artificial intelligence (AI) was identified. At a panel of the Press Advertising Agency on 9 January 2026, Saim Kurubaş, TRT’s coordinator for international news digital channels, described TRT’s use of a news assistant fed only with institutional data, with absolute human control, and labelling of AI-generated images, which are used for events in inaccessible areas such as Gaza.

The Türkiye Artificial Intelligence Action Plan 2026–2030, put into force by Presidential Circular 2026/9 in August 2026, succeeded the 2021–2025 national strategy. The Turkish Journalists’ Association’s Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities, updated on 29 April 2025, provides as professional guidance that AI-assisted content must be produced under editors’ final control and oversight, that content must state which AI program produced it, that journalists must keep the prompts they give AI programs and that they must not use AI to produce content contrary to the facts.

Classification rationale

TRT is classified State-Controlled (SC) because its revenue comes mostly from a state-mandated levy on electronic devices, appointments to its Board and the post of Director General depend on the President, and the European Commission and OSCE election observers have documented coverage favouring the governing parties.

October 2026