Abstract:

Since its establishment, TRT has tried to broadcast according to both principal philosophy of public service broadcasting and the mission laws have given to it. For this reason, TRT educated the society it addressed and while informing them, it strived to entertain them. However, it has always been argued to what extent TRT has been successful in this broadcasting mentality. TRT's elitist broadcasting mentality and protocol news reporting have been at the heart of these debates. When broadcasting setting changed suddenly as a result of the emergence of private broadcasting at the beginning of 1990s, criticisms about TRT's programmes increased. Commercial televisions, which embraced a complete opposite broadcasting mentality of TRT's and used entertainment as the core of every kind of programme, succeeded to attract the viewers. Hence, against the elitist broadcasting mentality of TRT, its competitors' popular programmes attracted viewers. In 2000s, when the competition between commercial televisions and TRT increased gradually, TRT faced a dilemma and resorted to changing its broadcasting mentality. Therefore, during the debates on that TRT's programmes have been monotonous and its news have been biased, the institution, which put public service broadcasting aside, had to compete with commercial televisions. In the light of what has been stated so far, in this study, it is aimed to uncover what kind of broadcasting mentality TRT has since the 2000s until today. Based on the assumption that same programmes of TRT have been criticised in all periods, in the study, it is aimed to reveal how the competition with commercial televisions affected TRT's mentality of broadcasting. In the scope of this aim and assumption, the period since the year 2000 has been considered. In this process, categories have been formed by selecting news in print media that discuss TRT's programmes. TRT's criticised / praised programmes have been analyzed under these categories. After the analysis, it is concluded that some of TRT's programmes and restrictions and supervision it applied to these programmes, and especially its protocol news reporting have been criticised; and it is concluded that its arts and culture programmes, and documentaries have been praised.

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