Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT)

The Turk­ish Radio and Tele­vi­sion Cor­po­ra­tion (TRT), estab­lished on May 1, 1964, serves as Turkey’s nation­al pub­lic broad­cast­er. Ini­tial­ly hold­ing a monop­oly over radio and tele­vi­sion broad­cast­ing until the ear­ly 1990s, TRT has since expand­ed its reach glob­al­ly. Today, it oper­ates mul­ti­ple tele­vi­sion chan­nels and radio sta­tions, broad­cast­ing in var­i­ous lan­guages and dialects. TRT’s inter­na­tion­al pres­ence includes TRT World, an Eng­lish-lan­guage news chan­nel launched in 2015 to pro­vide news and cur­rent affairs pro­gram­ming to a glob­al audi­ence. Fund­ing for TRT pri­mar­i­ly comes from a com­bi­na­tion of license fees, tax­es on elec­tron­ic devices, and gov­ern­ment grants. Despite its man­date for edi­to­r­i­al inde­pen­dence, TRT has faced crit­i­cism for per­ceived gov­ern­ment influ­ence over its con­tent. Beyond news, TRT has sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tributed to the inter­na­tion­al pop­u­lar­i­ty of Turk­ish tele­vi­sion dra­mas, export­ing numer­ous series to coun­tries world­wide, there­by enhanc­ing Turkey’s cul­tur­al diplomacy.

Ref­er­ences:

1. TRT His­to­ry – TRT Muse­um of Broad­cast­ing History

2. TRT World as a Par­ty Broad­cast­er – Sage Journals

3. Turkey’s State Broad­cast­er TRT May Have Vio­lat­ed U.S. For­eign Agent Law – Mid­dle East Forum

4. Where News Could Not Inspire Change: TRT World as a Par­ty Broad­cast­er – PubMed

5. Pub­lic Broad­cast­ing in The Turk­ish World Cul­ture: Case of TRT Avaz – DergiPark