Television

Television stations continue to be the main source of information for Macedonian citizens. According to the International Republican Institute's public survey conducted in May 2023, when asked which source they most often use for political news, 73 per cent of respondents said that they get that information from television, while 38 per cent have pointed to online media.

The first television founded in the country is the state "Macedonian television" (MRT), which started broadcasting in 1964, initially under the name "Television Skopje".

Two years after the country declared independence from former Yugoslavia, in 1993 the first private television "A1" started operating.

"A1" television was the most watched for years until it stopped broadcasting in 2011 after its owner and company were prosecuted for money laundering and tax evasion. The closure of the TV station was perceived as retaliation by then prime minister Nikola Gruevski as A1 was a vocal critic of his government.

Today, a total of 43 TV stations broadcast programs, five of which have a national license, while two broadcast via satellite and four via cable. The rest are regional or local television stations.

The main kinds of programs that most Macedonian televisions consist of are news shows, debates, contact shows and entertainment shows and soap operas, often from Turkish and Serbian production.

The Media Ownership Monitor in North Macedonia database contains data for eleven television stations. There is neither publicly available data on audience measurement for televisions, nor is there a company conducting such measurements. Rather, there is only data concerning the viewership of the five private televisions. Because of these circumstances the selection of televisions for this project was based on data from the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services of the Republic of North Macedonia.

In their report “Data on the reach of radio stations and on the share in the total viewership of television stations in 2022”, which was published by the Agency for the most watched televisions, were: the national private television stations "Sitel", "Kanal 5", "Alsat M", "Telma", "Alfa" and the first two channels of the public broadcaster "MRT 1" and "MRT 2". They are followed by "Television 21" and "Television 24", "Shenja" and "Klan Makedonija".