Democrat Party and Radio: A Reform Attempt (1954)

The Republican People's Party, which had ruled Turkey for 27 years, left the government to the Democrat Party (DP) in 1950. This situation meant the transfer of control of the state-owned radio to the DP. In this case, the first point of interest is what kind of attitude the DP followed during its governance because the DP had demanded the right to speak on the radio to the political party before it took over power. The second point to be questioned is how the DP changed the radio in line with its own political interests. In this context, we focused on the reform process of the radio in 1954 and probed content of the reforms and what the DP wanted to go through these reforms. We used the following resources for investigation: State Archives, minutes of the court, parliamentary minutes, laws, commission reports, Milliyet, Cumhuriyet, and Aksam newspapers, Radyonun Sesi, Radyo Alemi, Akis magazines and memories of important people related to the radio. As a result of the study, we have reached the conclusion that some reform attempts like broadcast contents, radio employees and the development of infrastructure were successful in improving the radio. However, three points are important in the reform initiative. Firstly the decisions taken weren’t fully implemented. Secondly, in the event of a conflict with the interests of the DP and the radio, the profits of the DP were favored. Lastly, some changes played an important role in making the radio a propaganda organ of the DP