Media
Media ownership and concentration
The total number of newspapers published in Turkey in 2020 was 2,164 and the number of magazines was 2,582 (TurkStat 2021). According to the August 2021 data, 943 radio and 475 television companies are broadcasting in Turkey (CİMER 2021).
The Internet penetration of households in Turkey is 92 percent (it was 90.7% in 2020). Among the age group of 16-74 internet use is 82.6 percent (TurkStat 2021).
Only 25 percent of the population reads daily newspapers. The same research says that 74.2 percent of the population use the Internet in 2020. The rate of those who say that they never use the Internet is 20.8 percent. 7.6 percent of the population say that they do not watch the news in 2020 (KONDA Research and Consultancy Barometer 2019-2020 Data).
The 2019 data by KONDA indicates that 25.3 percent of the population listens to the radio and 89.6 percent watches TV. KONDA data indicates that the most-watched channels in 2019 and 2020 are FOX TV, ATV and TRT, respectively.
According to the Reuters Institute Digital News report (2021), the tendency to use social media for following the news is on the rise in the selected urban sample set. The same report mentioned that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the urban sample group preferred Fox TV and CNN Türk among the TV channels.
Since there is no reliable data on the visits of news web-portals for 2020, we conclude the ratios by evaluating the rates of TV viewing, radio-listening and newspaper-reading. Demirören (35.57%) is the largest media group with the highest viewer/listener/reader ratios. Kalyon/Turkuvaz (30.76%) follows Demirören and Doğuş has 28.71 percent of total audience. Although there is no data on the rate of digital media followers/visits, when we look at the follower rates based on newspapers, radio and TV channels, it is seen that 95.04 percent of the followers are shared by three media groups.
Demirören and Kalyon are the only groups that invest in four areas such as radio, television, newspaper and website. The state broadcaster TRT has an audience rate of 18.81 percent with its channels on TV and radio. Estetik Publishing, transferred to Beme Media AG in 2020 and known for its anti-government broadcasting, has a follower rate of 13.44 percent (excluding the data of sozcu.com.tr, which ranks second in the top ten news portals list).
Hayat Görsel Publishing, which has investments in all three sections such as TV, radio and Internet news portals has a 10.21 percent and Ciner Group, which only invested in the TV and digital news industry after closing Habertürk newspaper in 2018, has 7.74 percent of followers.
Groups other than Estetik Publishing have political and economic relations with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and/or the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).