Turkuvaz Medya

Turkuvaz Medya is a Turkish media group whose main news brands include Sabah, ATV and A Haber. Its activities span television, radio, print and digital publishing, alongside retail, printing and distribution.

Media assets

Newspapers: Sabah, Takvim, Fotomaç, Yeni Asır and the English-language Daily Sabah.

Television: ATV, A Haber, A Spor, A Para, A2, A News, Vav TV, Minika Go, Minika Çocuk and ATV Avrupa.

Radio: 13 services, comprising four national and nine digital stations, according to the group.

Magazines: the group reports 19 regular magazines and 40 periodic or thematic publications. Its magazine catalogue includes Vogue Türkiye, GQ Türkiye, WIRED, Para, Şamdan Plus, Otohaber, Patrones and Kukuli.

Digital: websites associated with its newspaper and broadcasting brands, including sabah.com.tr, ahaber.com.tr, takvim.com.tr, fotomac.com.tr, yeniasir.com.tr and dailysabah.com.

Other businesses: D&R, the idefix marketplace, Prefix, Turkuvaz Dağıtım Pazarlama and printing plants in Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Adana and Trabzon.

Ownership and governance

Turkuvaz is held through Zirve Holding. Hürriyet reported on 20 December 2013 that the Competition Board had approved Zirve’s acquisition of shares in Turkuvaz companies from Çalık-related sellers. A Competition Board decision dated 19 December 2019 recorded Ömer Faruk Kalyoncu as Zirve’s sole shareholder and board chairman as of 12 September 2019. The Media Ownership Monitor’s (MOM) December 2021 record also attributes ownership of the media business to Kalyoncu. A current shareholder filing was not obtained for this review.

Kalyoncu is the son of Hasan Kalyoncu, founder of the Kalyon Group, according to MOM. The family’s wider business interests include construction, energy and infrastructure. Kalyon was part of the consortium that won the 25-year lease of Istanbul’s new airport in 2013, and the 2019 decision names it among the consortium members.

The group’s corporate website identifies Dr Serhat Albayrak as deputy chairman of the board. He is the brother of Berat Albayrak, the former energy and finance minister and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law.

Metin Yüksel is Sabah’s editor-in-chief, according to a Sabah interview of 15 July 2026. The masthead of sabah.com.tr names Hüseyin Özdemir as its editor-in-chief. Takvim.com.tr’s masthead names Tutkun Akbaş as its editor-in-chief. Both identify Turkuvaz Haberleşme ve Yayıncılık A.Ş. as publisher.

Source of funding and budget

A consolidated budget and a current breakdown of commercial and public revenue were not available in the sources reviewed.

Under the previous owner, Çalık, the USD 1.1 billion acquisition of Sabah-ATV was completed in April 2008 with USD 750 million in loans from the state-controlled banks Vakıfbank and Halkbank, according to Hürriyet Daily News.

Public funding through official notices and advertising is documented for 2020. Reporting on a Press Advertising Agency (BİK) report obtained by Deutsche Welle, Bianet stated that three Turkuvaz newspapers received more than TRY 33.5 million, approximately 18.4 per cent of the TRY 182.5 million allocated to 30 national newspapers. Sabah received TRY 17.56 million, the highest amount reported for an individual newspaper.

A separate analysis by Kenan Şener of Duvar, based on media-monitoring data, found that Sabah, Takvim and Yeni Asır together accounted for more than a quarter of public-bank newspaper advertising space across 26 newspapers in 2020. Sabah ranked second by advertising space.

Editorial independence

The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026 identifies ATV, Sabah and A Haber as pro-government outlets with lower trust. An August 2022 Reuters investigation, as summarised by Turkish Minute, described Sabah and ATV as staunch supporters of the government and reported, citing industry insiders, that newsrooms often receive directions from officials.

The OSCE/ODIHR’s final report on the 2023 elections documented bias in ATV’s coverage. In the second round, ATV gave Erdoğan 54 per cent of exclusively positive coverage, while Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu received 46 per cent of negative coverage. The observers also found that the newspapers Hürriyet and Sabah and the online outlet Habertürk showed clear favouritism towards Erdoğan.

Personnel links connect the group with government institutions. Burhanettin Duran left Sabah in May 2024, after ten years as a columnist, when he became deputy foreign minister. In his farewell column he thanked Serhat Albayrak, identifying him as both Turkuvaz’s deputy board chairman and chairman of the SETA think tank’s board. Duran’s appointment as head of the Presidency’s Directorate of Communications was published in the Official Gazette on 10 July 2025.

In a decision dated 5 December 2023, the Press Council censured Sabah reporter Halit Turan, columnist Mahmut Övür and responsible editor Hamza Özdemir over a report and column alleging that Ekrem İmamoğlu had bribed CHP delegates. It found breaches of its principles on verification and statements exceeding legitimate criticism. The censures were adopted by majority vote.

A Haber’s publishing principles state that editorial decisions are independent of advertising, marketing and corporate communications. Takvim.com.tr’s principles state that editorial decisions are independent of commercial and external influence. ATV and A Haber list viewer representatives, Mehmet Dilaver Kıvrak and Onur Aktepe, respectively. No group-wide editorial statute or oversight body demonstrably insulated from the owners was identified in this review.

AI and digital policy

A Haber’s principles require editorial supervision and disclosure of AI-assisted content. They permit AI support for translation, summarisation, data analysis and archive searches, while stating that stories are not produced entirely by AI. AI-generated visuals are to be illustrative and labelled, and must not be presented as recordings of real events. Takvim.com.tr’s principles place AI-supported content under editorial oversight and leave final decisions and responsibility with human editors. Neither policy displays a publication date.

Classification rationale

CaPr represents SMM’s assessment of political capture through private ownership. For Turkuvaz, the assessment rests on the combination of politically connected ownership and management, documented public advertising allocations, and sustained pro-government editorial positioning supported by election monitoring and independent reporting. The outlets’ published editorial commitments are acknowledged in this assessment.

October 2026