(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Özal and bought some of the Turkish newspapers. In fact this attempt could be explained as
Turgut Özal’s efforts to create a partisan press. However it did not work and Asil Nadir had to
leave media sector as he could not succeed. In 1990’s, in media sector, oligopolistic media
organizations based in İstanbul got the possession of any kind of diffusion organs and started
to regulate the production, distribution and advertising. So in Turkey this is the period where
vertical, horizontal and diagonal monopoly was present (Özer, 2004). Besides in 90’s and
2000’s, media monopoly cooperated with international corporations and partnerships with
foreign media corporations have been formed.
Today there are 6 big monopole groups in Turkey setting the agenda of the society.
These are Doğan Group, Merkez Group, Çalık Group, Doğuş Group, Çukurova Group and
Samanyolu Group. Groups which marked the last quarter of Turkey by their media activities
are: Doğan Group, Çukurova Group, Doğuş Group, Turgay Ciner Group, Dinç Bilgin Group,
Uzan Group, Erol Aksoy Group, İhlas Holding-Enver Ören Group (Kaya, 2009: 248). Çalık
and Samanyolu groups should be added to these groups. In Turkey media monopoly has
changed hands from time to time. These media monopolies are the owners of broadcasting
channels, radios, daily newspapers, magazines and internet sites and digital platforms.
Additionally they do not own only media institutions they are active in other sectors. For
instance Sabah newspaper’s owner Çalık Group is active in following sectors: Textile, energy,
telecommunication, finance, logistic and technology. Çalık Media called also Turkuvaz A.Ş.
possesses the following broadcasting corporations: Television: ATV, Radio city, Sabah,
Takvim, Günaydın, Yeni Asır, Fotomaç, Bebeğim and Biz Merkez, Sinema Merkez, Home
Art Merkez, Şamdam Plus, Yeni Aktüel, Para, Global Enerji Merkez, Transport, Kukuki
Perspektifler magazines (Kaya, 2009: 264-265).
In 1990’s Turkish television passed by a transition period where commercial
broadcasting became greater. According to Prof. Dr. Haluk Geray (Personal interview), Özal
found out he could not effectuate neo-liberal politics with government’s broadcasting channel
TRT so he let his son to be the partner of a commercial broadcasting channel even though it is
against the Constitution. By the way commercial broadcasting era started. During this time,
TV broadcastings were very irregular because of insufficient social, economical, cultural,
educational and legal infrastructure. Even in 2000’s there was not a real system or regulation
concerning the commercial broadcasting in Turkey. It is possible to explain this situation by
Karl Marx’s quotation about feodalism-kapitalism “death catches up the live” (Marx, 2004):
irregularities and chaos of 90’s catches up 2000’s irregularities and chaos in media.
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