For 2025, the budgets of almost all state media outlets in Uzbekistan have increased compared to 2024. This information is based on the state budget law and the president's decree on its implementation.
Specifically, the budget for MTRK, which unites regional TV and radio companies and channels such as “Uzbekistan,” “Uzbekistan 24,” “Tashkent,” “Sport,” “Culture and Enlightenment,” “World Around,” “Bolajon,” “Mahalla,” and “Uzbekistan History,” has increased by 58.5% compared to 2024, reaching 881.3 billion UZS (up from 555.9 billion UZS). By 2027, this budget may exceed 1 trillion UZS.
It is expected that 108 billion UZS will be spent on acquiring a mobile television station to promote football among the population. Another 20 billion UZS will be allocated to transition the “Uzbekistan 24” and “Mahalla” TV channels fully to HD format.
The strategic goals for MTRK over the next few years include building an open civil society, fostering democratic values in people's minds, covering the results of state policies and reforms under the "New Uzbekistan" strategy, and delivering these to society via television and radio programs.
In the coming three years, the amount of television content will remain at 198,190 hours per year. However, the number of radio broadcast hours is expected to increase by 14%, reaching 60,080 hours.
The number of television channels (26) and radio stations (17) will remain unchanged over the next three years.
The UzA budget will rise by 15.4%, from 35.2 billion UZS to 40.7 billion UZS. UzA’s strategic goal is to provide unbiased, consistent coverage of the country's domestic and foreign policies, socio-economic changes, and deep reforms, all from the perspective of Uzbekistan’s national interests.
In 2025, UzA plans to increase the share of subscribers to its media platforms by 3.5% relative to the number of active social media users, with a target of reaching 4% by 2026. Additionally, the share of articles published in 9 foreign languages is expected to increase to 80% of all articles published annually.
UzA also plans to increase the number of text, photo, video, and audio materials by 95,000, add 165,000 new subscribers, and raise the number of views of its video and audio materials to 9.5 million.
According to the presidential decree on the 2025 state budget, the budgets for the “New Uzbekistan,” “Pravda Vostoka,” “Nurli jol,” and “Ovozi Tojik” newspapers will total 65.65 billion UZS. Last year, funding for the Kazakh-language “Nurli jol” and Tajik-language “Ovozi Tojik” republic social-political newspapers was set at 4.14 billion UZS.
Information regarding the budget for the “Khalq Suzi” (The People's Word) newspaper and other newspapers of the Oliy Majlis was not available.
In November 2023, the president approved the cancellation of penalties for overdue payments on a loan allocated to MTRK, and confirmed an increase in the state budget's share for covering this loan. Initially, a 22.5 million EUR debt was to be divided equally, but now 93% of this debt will be covered by the state budget.
In September of the same year, MTRK signed a contract with Lithuania’s TVC Solutions to equip the Jizzakh regional TV and radio company with a modern studio complex and mobile television station, for which 58 billion UZS (4.44 million EUR) will be allocated from the state budget.
In previous years, MTRK received the following amounts from the state budget: 463.6 billion UZS in 2022, 427.1 billion UZS in 2021, and 399.5 billion UZS in 2020.
