From its inception in the 1930s, the broadcasting service in Turkey was set up as a centralized and state­ controlled entity, similar to the telegraph and telephone services that preceded it. Although radio broadcasting in Turkey began at around the same time as in other countries, television broadcasting came very late. The primary reason for the delay was economic. By the 1950s, Turkey had left behind the early republican era in favor of multiparty politics, popular elections, and more liberal economics. Despite these changes, Turkey would see a series of economic crises and breakdowns of democracy in following decades. Although it was resolved that television broadcasting would contribute to the fast-changing social structure of Turkey, it was thought to be an unnecessarily expensive investment to make. Thus, regular broadcasting had to wait until the late 1960s.

     The preparations for providing a laboratory environment that would allow experimentation with TV broadcasting began in 1948, and the first such broadcast was made from a transmission station at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) on July 9, 1952. The two­ hour broadcasts continued once a week on Saturdays, and included domestic and foreign films, entertainment, and discussion programs, but were received by a very limited number of viewers in Istanbul. Since the system was experimental, there was no broadcasting policy, directorial board, or administrative unit in charge of programming. By 1957, there were 160-170 receivers in Istanbul.

     The  1960s  marked  Turkish  political  and  social life with many significant incidents, including the beginning of state television broadcasts. Following the technical aid agreement signed between the German Federal Republic and Turkey in 1963, a television training center was built in Ankara. After the 1960 military coup, the 1961 constitution, in order to prevent abuse of the airwaves by the ruling party, redefined the broadcast institution's status as an autonomous state organization. Thus, on January 31, 1968, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), successor to the earlier radio broadcasting institution, broadcast its first program, The History of the Turkish Revolution, to its  Ankara  audiences.  Broadcasting   to  Istanbul and Izmir  was  made  possible  in  1971  when  a radio-link line was finished by the PTT (Post Telephone and Telegraph). TV sets, at first considered luxury items, soon became commonplace. Even the poorest neighborhoods with no running water or phone lines were soon to meet Bonanza and Dennis the Menace.

     The late 1960s witnessed constant tension between the government and the now-autonomous TRT. Within two years of the 1960 coup, Suleyman Demirel and his Justice Party (JP) came to power. The new government had little sympathy for the liberal reforms instigated by the military. This created a series of conflicts. Because the new government was unsuccessful in its attempts to strip the TRT of its autonomy, it then attempted to exert pressure on it by, for example, freezing the license fee to restrict budgets and by increasing intervention in programming content. On February 16, 1969, for example, a labor march took place in Istanbul that ended with fights between marchers and police. The TRT, which included the march in its evening news hour with footage of the incident, was immediately prohibited from broadcasting the program by Demirel. In short, the first years of television broadcasting in Turkey, up until 1970, were marked by the TRT administration's struggle against the government to maintain its autonomy.

     Meanwhile, the regular ITU broadcasts had contin­ued, and went on until March 6, 1970, when they were halted due to the student movements that preceded the military coup of the following year. In 1971, all broadcasting facilities and transmitters of ITU were transferred to the TRT when the military declared martial law, accusing Demirel of abusing the state institutions and of wrongdoing, and forcing him to resign. The newly amended constitution, issued following the coup, had an authoritarian bent, which also affected broadcasting. Control of TRT was given to a general, and broadcasting once again became state-dominated. Although the 1972 constitution affirmed the TRT's independence from party politics, instead of speaking of the TRT as autonomous, it was now described as "im­partial," which in practice meant that the TRT remained a medium of the governing party throughout this era.

     Until the end of the 1970s, directors-general of theTRT came and went. each being subject to criticism either from the right or the left. Television broadcasting in this era, far from introducing a more pluralistic media scene. merely represented the state of institutional politics. It was during this era that politics and politicians became mediatized in Turkey. Addresses to the nation and election campaign speeches were regular fare on the TRT's broadcasts, along with sports programs and popular American series.

     Domestic right-left clashes, which claimed hundreds of lives up until 1980. led to a new military coup, and an army general once again took over the TRT as its new director general. As after the previous coup, the 1982 constitution and the 1983 broadcasting legislation that emerged from it paid lip service to reducing governmental control over the TRT and maintaining its impartiality. As part of the legislation that went into force on January 1, 1984, a High Authority Commission for radio and television was established with members appointed largely by the president of the republic. That body in tum appointed the administrative council and the director general of the TRT. The High Authority Commission established program policy guidelines for broadcasting. but could control programs only after their airing. The Commission also made recommendations on the establishment of new broadcast stations, and granted licenses for non-public and cable television. which came in 1988. Although all members of the Commission were required to hold university degrees, and eight of the twelve members were selected from noted personalities in broadcasting, in practice the presidents of the republic tended to sympathize with the government, and thus the commission had a substantial partisan tilt despite all of its educational credentials.

     In terms of programming content, the 1983 legislation provided for indigenous programs to be given priority over foreign ones (which were seen as having corrupting effects, to some degree), so as to help stimulate necessary social changes. However, imported programs continued to constitute a substantial amount of airtime. The government also had the right to present its own monthly half-hour programs. and could ban programs or news items for security reasons. Programs were required to operate in accordance with the principles of the constitution, which gave the TRT the task of promoting values such as patriotism and Ke­malism. Television programs at this time were seen as an important element in the creation of a sense of national unity. through use of an homogenized official Turkish language, programming national folkloric music, and presenting a collective understanding of national history. Another very important issue that led to further tightening of governmental control  over  the  TRT in the mid- 1980s was the clash between the Turkish state and the separatist movement started by the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK). As a result of the growing conflict. programs about "anarchy and terror" were required to be broadcast on a regular basis. The TRT was supposed to assume a standpoint supporting the state regarding the Kurdish problem and  terrorism.  During the mid- l980s, the TRT was also seeking means  to bring broadcasts to more people in remote areas, especially in the southeast, to counter propaganda from the PKK. Second and third channels. TRT 2 (1986)  and TRT 3 (1989), together with GAP TV (targeting audiences in southeast Turkey).  were  attempts  to  satisfy this need for diversity in programming by  the  TRT. TRT 2 was of cultural nature. broadcasting quality programs like classic films,  documentaries,  and  news hours in English for foreign diplomats and  visitors, while the TRT3 was mainly targeted at young audiences, for educational and entertainment purposes.

     The TRT broadcasts went color in 1984, and weekly broadcasting was increased from 113 to 130 hours in 1988 . Despite the technical progress it achieved. TRT programming in the 1980s was extremely ideology­ laden. aimed at shaping public opinion on issues ranging from economic measures to state security policies. In short, throughout the 1980s the TRT remained a highly bureaucratic and politicized body. and "impartiality" remained a thing of legislative rhetoric rather than of deed. However, there was not much that could be done by the TRT itself. which was restrained by the TRT law.

     In 1990, TRT 4 started  experimental  broadcasts  of an educational nature, and the same year day-time programs were also initiated, targeted primarily to a  fe­male audience. The TRT. at this time, was also seeking opportunities to become a major player in the Turkish geolinguistic market. Outcomes of this endeavor included TRT-INT. beamed via satellite in  1990 primarily to Turkish citizens living abroad  (mainly  in Germany but including all of  Europe  and  North Africa). and TRT-AVRASYA. beaming programs via satellite to the Turkic republics of Central Asia and Azerbaijan in 1992. But the most important development of the early 1990s was the first private channel's pirate broadcasts in 1990, which changed the whole electronic-media scene in Turkey.

     Although many private satellite dishes were already installed to receive European channels and CNN. the Swiss-based station. Star I (owned by Magic Box). broadcasting from Germany via EUTELSAT F-10 East. hit the medium as the first private channel to reach Turkey in 1990. The very legality of Star I was, of course, the major issue at stake. However, there was very little political debate at the beginning, and the station had the president's blessing. One of the partners of Magic Box was Ahmet Ozal, the elder son of the president of the time, Turgut Ozal, an absolute free marketeer and aggressive advocate of the free circulation of goods and ideas. Ozal told reporters that even though it was unconstitutional to set up private television channels on Turkish soil, there was nothing illegal about broadcasting into Turkey from abroad, as did CNN. Private broadcasts went on, but the policy changes would not catch up until the mid- 1990s.

     Other channels followed rapidly in Star I's wake. By the end of 1992, Show TV, Kanai 6, Flash TV, HBB, and the second Magic Box station, Teleon, were also broadcasting into Turkey from abroad. At the beginning, viewers had to have satellite dishes. Soon, municipalities bought dishes and transmitters and re-broadcast the satellite channels locally, an easy way to win popular support.

     The TRT suffered heavy audience-share losses in a matter of few years following the emergence of the private TV channels. But private broadcasting was immediately welcomed as a part of Turkey's media scene by the audience and by certain agencies of the state, even though the stations were of "illegal" status. For instance, the Turkish Football Federation, a unit of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, signed agreements with Magic Box to sell the right to broadcast Turkish soccer league games to Star 1, with devastating consequences for TRT's ratings. The TRT, in this process, began to imitate the global channels, modifying its formerly elitist and culturalist agenda. While some circles criticized the TRT for damaging its position as a public institution by engaging in commercial competition and promoting consumerism, some saw it as a positive change.

     The  private  channels'  popularity  was  also  due to their policy of giving significant airtime to newswor­thy topics, and to the presentation of their version of national news, which often conflicted with that of the TRT. In one incident, for example, stringers covering a May Day parade filmed police beating marchers and even a member of Parliament, while the TRT's version of the event was one of "disturbances caused by fringe radicals." Social and political issues such as sexuality, homosexuality, and Kurdish and Islamic identities also became everyday topics of the news hours and TV forums. Thus, formerly restricted topics such as military personas and coups immediately became regular fare on comedy programs. Nevertheless, while a few programs, such as Siyaset Meydani (Political Forum), dealt with the issues in a serious light, most others made it part of their sensational discourse. Responses were mixed. Academic and intellectual circles both praised the private channels for challenging the TRT and heavily criticized them for their extremely commercialized program content. Conservatives, on the other hand, were enraged with morally "loose" programming, and "family" channels came into existence. This played a role in the rapid rise of political Islam in the 1990s. All in all, through the commercial channels, ethnic/cultural differences and political identities that had been excluded from the TRT's rhetoric of "homogeneous nationhood" became part of a collective consciousness for Turkish audiences throughout the 1990s.

     In line with its turbulent history, Turkish television in the early 2000s remains in flux. Today, in addition to the TRT channels, 16 national, 14 regional, and 294 local TV channels are in operation. The High Commission is still responsible for monitoring all the broadcasting for any "indiscreet," "indecent," or "unauthorized" programming, although promising amendments that will give further freedoms to media outlets seem to be on the way. Although many have come to regard the TRT as a public enterprise, "real" public-service television is still missing from the Turkish media scene. Filling that gap would be the next positive development for Turkish audiences.