Khabar Agency
Founded in 1995, Khabar Agency has long stood as a central pillar of Kazakhstan’s media landscape, originally launched as the National Television News Agency—aptly named “Khabar,” or “News,” in Kazakh. Today, it remains one of the country’s largest media entities, delivering daily programming in Russian, Kazakh, and English. Among its assets, Khabar operates the satellite channel Jibek Joly TV (also commonly referred to as “Kazakh TV”), which broadcasts across Europe and Asia, and continues to serve multilingual audiences. . The agency also oversees the El‑Arna television channel.
Media assets
Television: Khabar TV, Kazakh TV, El-Arna
News portal: 24.kz
State Media Matrix Typology
Ownership and governance
Khabar Agency is wholly owned by Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Culture and Information. In September 2023, Kemelbek Oishybayev took the helm as Chairman of the Board, as confirmed by the Ministry.
Source of funding and budget
As a state-funded entity, Khabar Agency relies heavily on government subsidies. In 2017, it was the second-largest recipient of state funding, receiving approximately 14 billion Kazakh tenge (roughly USD 42.3 million), which covered a substantial share of its operating costs, the most recent public data available on that front.
Editorial independence
Khabar Agency carries out the informational directives of the Kazakh government, and—based on the latest publicly available research—no domestic legal framework or independent oversight mechanism has been identified to safeguard its editorial autonomy.
August 2025