Samanyolu TV was an international Turkish language

TV station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's ...

with its headquarters in

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

. The channel is known for its closeness to

Fethullah Gülen Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (27 April 1941 – 20 October 2024) was a Turkish Ulama, Muslim scholar, preacher, and leader of the Gülen movement who as of 2016 had millions of followers. Gülen was an influential Neo-Ottomanism, neo-Ottomanist, A ...

, the leader of the

Gülen movement The Gülen movement () or Hizmet movement () is an Islamist fraternal movement. It is a sub-sect of Sunni Islam based on a Nursian theological perspective as reflected in Fethullah Gülen's religious teachings. It is referred to by its membe ...

. Samanyolu TV was previously owned by Yayıncılık A.Ş. Yayıncılık A.Ş. is a media company that operates radio and television broadcasting, publication and distribution of newspapers. The first satellite service for Samanyolu TV was aired towards

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. Samanyolu TV proceeded into North America by 1999, with Türksat as its new mainstream satellite operator. Samanyolu TV later created two official websites for people of Turkish origin, both North American audiences, and Turkish audiences. The two websites also included online streaming (Canlı Yayın) and social networks such as

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Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, and

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in 2005–2013.

Naming and influences

Samanyolu TV is generally assumed to have adopted the name (meaning "Milky Way" in English) with religious connotations. In essence ''Milky Way'' peddles the notion of an "other" universe aside from the present world. One may see that the title of the television station plays an important role for the list of programs it airs for its audiences. Samanyolu TV contains several

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

programs that have heavy emphasis on culture, politics, and utmost religion. Samanyolu TV was funded by many individuals and companies, but the most constructive contribution was from by

. Gülen was a well-known Turkish Muslim preacher, scholar and author. Gülen lived in exile in the United States, due to the formation of the

which has received much controversy and criticism in Turkey.

History

On 11 January 2000, STV Xazar started broadcasting as an international simulcast feed for

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

. On 18 September 2014, Samanyolu TV merged into the 16:9 HD and SD format in conjunction with

Show TV Show TV is a Turkish free-to-air national television channel, established in 1991 by Erol Aksoy, Dinç Bilgin, Haldun Simavi and Erol Simavi, owned by the Can Holding. History The channel replaces Cine5's now-defunct frequencies, and it was ...

and Star TV switching frequencies from Türksat 4A. In June 2015, Samanyolu Yayıncılık A.Ş. announced that the closure of Samanyolu TV, along with its news channel, Samanyolu Haber, will occur in the early hours of 1 May 2016, due to alleged links with the

(and later due to the 2016 Turkish coup d’état attempt). Both channels' licenses will be revoked completely. For that, some employees at Samanyolu TV left. The broadcasting equipment was moved to their homes. Samanyolu TV sold its buildings in Ankara and left its buildings in Çamlıca and rented a studio in Germany. On 30 April 2016, Samanyolu TV's license was revoked and the channel closed by the Radio and Television Supreme Council due to alleged links with the Gülen movement following the coup d'état attempt. Its HD simulcast continued to operate until 26 July 2016, in which it ceased broadcasting completely. After the coup d’état attempt, Samanyolu TV will not return as a linear television channel. However, its website, ''Samanyolu.tv'' is still available for news.

Programming

Samanyolu TV programs contained controversial content with relation to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic teachings and their relation to cultural norms. One of the many examples that implements religious content is the television series (meaning "The Little Apocalypse" in Turkish). Samanyolu TV had two policies regarding commercials, one for local viewers in Turkey, where the station was wide open for a range of commercials, and another for North American audiences, where the commercials were limited and the same commercials played repeatedly. Aside from commercials, Samanyolu TV included a new program entitled ''Ebru TV'' designed for English-speaking audiences and open to people of any cultural background. ''Ebru TV'' was most popular for individuals residing in Canada and the United States. Samanyolu TV also had an official news program that broadcast locally and internationally to its viewers. Samanyolu TV included children's programs that are family-friendly, with children's programs such as ''

Caillou ''Caillou'' ( ; , stylized in lowercase) is an animated educational children's television series that aired on Teletoon (both English and French versions) with the first episode airing on the former channel on September 15, 1997 until the fou ...

'' on the channel. Furthermore, for all audiences, the channel included shows such as (meaning "Green Apple" in Turkish), travel shows such as ("Mirror"); and also included programs imitating the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

, with shows such as ("Documentary"); ("Different Patterns" in Turkish) was another popular television drama series.

December 2014 crackdown

On 14 December 2014 Turkish police arrested more than two dozen senior journalists and media executives, including Samanyolu TV General Manager Hidayet Karaca on charges of "forming, leading and being a member of an armed terrorist organization." The arrested are people associated with the Gülen movement. The Turkish government accused the movement of infiltrating the police and judiciary. A statement by the

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

cautioned Turkey not to violate its "own democratic foundations" while drawing attention to raids against media outlets "openly critical of the current Turkish government." EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said that the arrests went "against European values" and "are incompatible with the freedom of media, which is a core principle of democracy".

References

External links

{{Television in Turkey Defunct television channels in Turkey Turkish-language television stations Television channels and stations established in 1993 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2016 1993 establishments in Turkey 2016 disestablishments in Turkey Religious television stations in Turkey Mass media shut down in the 2016 Turkish purges