Real TV

Real TV has been removed from the State Media Monitor dataset. Its previous classification as Captured Private Media is not sustained by the evidence available for this review cycle.

State Media Monitor could identify the channel’s licensed operator but could not verify its current shareholders or ultimate beneficial owner, or establish a mechanism through which state authorities or state-linked controlling actors direct its general editorial decisions.

The Audiovisual Council’s current register identifies Real Təhlil İnformasiya Mərkəzi LLC as the media subject and records nationwide news-television licence UYT-011 of 12 September 2022, covering digital terrestrial, satellite, platform and multiplex distribution from an address at Ahmad Rajabli Street 2, house 21, in Baku. Earlier licences numbered 186 of 5 March 2018 and 197 of 23 April 2019 form part of the channel’s licensing history; licence 186 was annulled in 2020 because licence 197 already authorised the same distribution.

Press accounts concerning the company’s founder are inconsistent. A 2018 launch report identified Mirshahin Aghayev as founder and director, while a 2020 report named businessman Iman Guliyev and associated the company’s then registered address with the Modern Group of Companies. State Media Monitor obtained no corporate record confirming either account or identifying the company’s current participants or ultimate beneficial owner, and the regulator’s current register gives a different address. The Modern Group connection remains a historical research lead rather than an ownership finding, and the previously published claim of indirect control by the President’s family is undocumented.

The editorial evidence demonstrates unusually explicit pro-government alignment. In July 2019 General Director Mirshahin Aghayev was reported as saying that Real TV had chosen a side and would become tougher. Subsequent broadcasts targeting the independent journalist Sevinc Osmanqızı and Azerbaijani climate activists ahead of COP29 in 2024 were consistent with that position, and Eurasianet has described the channel as government-affiliated. This establishes an editorial line adopted and implemented by the channel’s management. It does not identify a state owner, appointment power, controlling financier or other mechanism through which the state directs the channel’s general editorial decisions.

Public financing exists but has not been shown to confer control. Real TV received AZN 500,000 from the President’s reserve fund in 2020, as one of six private nationwide broadcasters receiving equal grants, so the assistance was sector-wide rather than preferential. It has also produced Real Vətən under the state-order audiovisual content programme, whose rules provide for contractual payments to successful broadcasters with implementation monitored by the regulator. State Media Monitor could not establish the value of that contract, identify a general operating subsidy or determine public financing as a proportion of the company’s revenue. The state-order arrangement demonstrates direction over a commissioned programme, not over the channel’s general editorial output.

The statutory framework requires the regulator to collect non-public information about founders, participants and certain direct and indirect participation interests. Those records may permit the ownership chain to be established, but the public register does not disclose them and the provisions do not by themselves prove the identity of the current ultimate beneficial owner.

Because neither current private ownership nor a state mechanism controlling the general editorial agenda has been established to State Media Monitor’s required standard, the classification is not sustained. The entry may be reconsidered on obtaining the Article 26.7 and Media Register filings alongside a current corporate extract; documentary evidence of ultimate beneficial ownership; all state-order contracts and payments; and evidence tying appointments, financing or instructions to the channel’s general editorial decisions. Content analysis would strengthen the alignment finding but would not by itself resolve the missing ownership and control evidence.

August 2026