Bhutan

Bhutan is a democratic constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system, and its Constitution guarantees freedom of the press, radio, television and electronic media. Unlike several countries in South Asia, Bhutan does not display a pattern of killings or mass detention of journalists, and RSF describes physical threats against them as rare. Its press-freedom problems are primarily structural, legal, economic and sociocultural, but not purely institutional: defamation proceedings, a national-security provision penalising attempts to create hostility between the government and the people, restricted access to official information, online harassment and pervasive self-censorship also constrain reporting.

Bhutan’s two mapped state-media organisations were delinked from direct government administration in 1992. A Royal Kasho granted the Bhutan Broadcasting Service operating autonomy, while a royal edict constituted Kuensel as an autonomous corporation. Neither organisation subsequently acquired a protected editorial-appointment system or an enforceable statutory firewall insulating its newsroom from the state’s ownership powers, and their institutional and editorial trajectories have diverged:

• Bhutan Broadcasting Service, the national radio and television broadcaster, remains classified State-Controlled (SC). BBS is wholly state-owned and substantially supported through government grants and operational subsidies. The Information, Communications and Media Act 2018 designates BBS as the public-service broadcaster and requires it to be governed through an approved by-law or charter. No such governance instrument establishing an independent board, protected appointments or an editorial firewall had been adopted by July 2026. The National Council reported in 2024 that BBS was still struggling to attain effective public-service status, and the government continued to describe its transformation as unfinished in 2026.
• Kuensel, Bhutan’s national newspaper, remains classified Independent State-Managed/Owned (ISM). The government owns 51% of Kuensel Corporation Limited, which is listed on the Royal Securities Exchange of Bhutan, while private, institutional and employee shareholders hold the remaining 49%. Kuensel states that it has received no direct government subsidy since 1998 and finances itself through advertising, subscriptions, sales and commercial printing. Successive MJRC content assessments found its political reporting broadly balanced and without discernible governmental slant. In January 2026, Kuensel reduced its print schedule from six days a week to Wednesdays and Saturdays while continuing to publish digital news daily.

The accountability framework surrounding both outlets has weakened. Bhutan’s independent Media Council was dissolved in 2023, removing an important media self-regulation and accountability mechanism, and no right-to-information law has been enacted. Under the 2018 Act, the minister appoints the members of the Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority from government bodies and sectoral nominees, meaning that BICMA is not structurally independent of the executive.

Bhutan’s two mapped outlets are both under majority state ownership, but their classifications reflect different evidence. BBS remains wholly state-owned, heavily dependent on government support and without the implemented governance instrument required for genuine public-service autonomy. Kuensel, despite the state’s controlling shareholding and the absence of a statutory editorial firewall, has maintained commercially financed operations and a demonstrated record of editorial autonomy in practice.

The distinction is therefore real but fragile. Kuensel’s ISM classification depends on continued evidence that the state does not use its ownership or advertising leverage to direct editorial output. BBS should remain State-Controlled until the public-service charter or by-law required by the 2018 Act is adopted and implemented with independent governance, protected appointments and enforceable editorial safeguards.

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