Who Owns the Media?
CIReN is publishing its updated research to continue to shed light on the media ownership scene in the Republic of Cyprus, in order to help the public identify the ultimate beneficial owners of the providers of the news they consume.
For years, the absence of transparency in media ownership in the Republic of Cyprus has held the country’s global media pluralism ranking much lower than would be expected of a European Union member state and, more importantly, has tainted the integrity of the journalism produced.
Since our previous project on media ownership in 2024, there have been significant developments in the European Union regarding the need to improve transparency in media ownership, while new international assessments have been published on media pluralism and media freedom.
The most important development has been the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2024/1083 on the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which obliges media service providers to “make easily and directly accessible to the recipients of their services up-to-date information” on their ownership, including direct or indirect owners and shareholders “enabling them to exercise influence on the operation and strategic decision-making.”
From 8 August 2025, most of the substantive EMFA’s provisions (including media ownership transparency obligations) fully apply across the EU. These provisions are directly binding across all Member States, and media services providers must apply them. Some elements require Member States to adopt or align national rules – for example, establishing or adapting media ownership databases or administrative procedures to ensure uniform enforcement at the national level.
While the Republic of Cyprus is legally bound by EMFA and its transparency obligations, there has so far been no effective and practical implementation (e.g., public database, regulator reporting). A draft bill aimed at adapting national legislation to EMFA was presented to stakeholders in April amid strong criticism from press freedom groups, legal experts and media advocates, who warned it could threaten media freedom instead of protecting it.
The Ministry of Interior told CIReN that “the bill has been submitted to the Law Office of the Republic in July with a request for its urgent legal review so that it can be forwarded immediately to the Council of Ministers for approval and to the House of Representatives for voting.”
In July, the European Commission, in its Rule of Law report on Cyprus, underlined that “the legal framework relating to transparency of media ownership has not been improved”. The report noted, “digital and print media remain unregulated as regards transparency of media ownership and the relevant legal framework governing audiovisual media is applied in an inconsistent manner.”
The Republic of Cyprus has suffered a massive decline in the 2025 in the World Press Freedom Index amid concerns about recent legislative attempts by the government that would undermine freedom of the media. According to the RSF index published in May, Cyprus has slipped 12 places to rank 77th among 180 countries.
The EUI Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom in its June 2025 monitoring report assessed Cyprus’ lack of ownership transparency as High Risk at 90 percent for 2024 compared to 84 percent in 2023.
In this report, CIReN updated and expanded its survey of media ownership to include latest changes in ownership, as well as all Cypriot television channels and newspapers.
The survey data were verified against official records held by the Department of Registrar of Companies of the Republic of Cyprus.
In our updated media ownership project, we used official and public records to piece together ownership of some privately-owned Turkish Cypriot media outlets.
We identified individuals whose background is relevant for public interest, for example those who held political influence or public office, and those who have interests in non-media sectors.
The trends we previously noticed continue:
A large number of Turkish Cypriot media outlets are owned by Turkish or Turkish Cypriot businessmen with interests in the hotel, casino, and construction industries.
Many media owners are or have served in government posts.
Ownership information in a sector so critical to public interest should be publicly available and easily accessible. Unfortunately, in northern Cyprus, inquiries need to be made physically at the companies registrar as there is no online access. Moreover, many company records are not updated and information about companies with outdated records can only be accessed by lawyers for legal purposes only.
Adding to the challenge is the fact that some media outlets lack ownership transparency, either by not disclosing their owners, or by using shell companies or proxy owners.
Please find our historical findings for the Republic of Cyprus Media Ownership report for 2024 at this link and our historical findings for the Turkish Cypriot Media Ownership report for 2024 at this link