Major Media Houses of Nepal: Company Profiles Directory

Nepal's news landscape is unusually crowded on paper but concentrated in practice. Press Council Nepal, the statutory press regulator, has registered several thousand newspapers over the decades, yet only a few hundred publish regularly and a much smaller group commands national reach. Most of that reach sits with a handful of privately owned conglomerates that run daily newspapers, television channels, FM radio stations and news websites under one corporate roof. This cross-media ownership model means a single company often reaches the same reader on the printed page, the television screen, the car radio and the smartphone.

The one major exception is the state sector. Gorkhapatra Corporation is a government-owned publishing corporation, and the country's public broadcasters, Radio Nepal (established 2 April 1951) and Nepal Television (on air from 30 January 1985 / 17 Magh 2041 BS), have historically operated separately from the private houses. A 2024 Public Service Broadcasting Act set out to merge Radio Nepal and Nepal Television into a single Public Service Broadcasting entity, though print remains with Gorkhapatra Corporation.

For job-seekers, advertisers and researchers, the practical question is who owns what. The five houses profiled below, Kantipur Media Group, Gorkhapatra Corporation, Nepal Republic Media, Annapurna Media Network and Image Group, between them own most of the country's highest-circulation newspapers and best-known broadcast brands. The profiles that follow give founding years, ownership and the print, broadcast and online outlets each group operates.

Kantipur Media Group is the largest private media house in Nepal. Its flagship titles, the Nepali-language Kantipur daily and the English-language The Kathmandu Post, were founded together in February 1993 (Falgun 2049 BS) by entrepreneur Shyam Goenka, just two years after Nepal's post-1990 constitution guaranteed press freedom. Binod Raj Gyawali and Kailash Sirohiya later joined as partners, and after the partnership split in 2008 the Sirohiya family retained Kantipur. Kailash Sirohiya serves as chairman.

In print, Kantipur Publications runs the Kantipur daily and The Kathmandu Post as its two national dailies, alongside the weekly Nepal magazine, the entertainment tabloid Saptahik and the women's monthly Nari. On the broadcast side, Kantipur Television is one of Nepal's most-watched private channels, complemented by sister channels such as Kantipur Max, and Radio Kantipur (Kantipur FM) anchors the group's radio presence.

Online, the group's ekantipur.com and kathmandupost.com are among the most-visited Nepali and English news portals in the country. This combination of a top Nepali daily, a leading English daily, a flagship television channel and a national FM network makes KMG the benchmark against which other Nepali media houses are measured, and a frequent target for both advertisers and media-freedom scrutiny.

Gorkhapatra Corporation is Nepal's state-owned publishing house and the custodian of the country's oldest surviving newspaper. Gorkhapatra began as a weekly on 6 May 1901 (24 Baisakh 1958 BS), launched under Prime Minister Dev Shumsher Rana, and became a daily in 1961. The corporation itself was formed on 9 July 1963 (25 Ashar 2020 BS) under the Gorkhapatra Corporation Act, placing the historic title on a statutory, government-owned footing.

Unlike the private conglomerates, Gorkhapatra Corporation is a print-focused body owned by the Government of Nepal. Its two dailies are the Nepali-language Gorkhapatra and the English-language The Rising Nepal, which was established on 16 December 1965 (1 Poush 2022 BS). The corporation also publishes literary and youth periodicals, including the literary magazine Madhuparka, the children's magazine Muna and the youth magazine Yuva Manch.

Because it is a public entity, Gorkhapatra Corporation does not carry the cross-media ownership seen in the private sector; broadcasting is handled by the separate state broadcasters. Its role is nonetheless significant: government notices, tenders and official communications are routinely published in Gorkhapatra and The Rising Nepal, giving the corporation a durable institutional readership that is independent of commercial circulation trends.

Nepal Republic Media (NRM) was established in 2009 by the Gyawali family, who had earlier been co-founders and partners in Kantipur Publications before the ownership split of 2008. The house was built around a Nepali daily and an English daily launched in tandem, echoing the dual-language model that has served Nepali media houses well.

Its flagship print titles are the Nepali-language Nagarik daily and the English-language Republica (styled myRepublica), which are sister publications produced by the same company. The group also publishes the Sukrabar weekly. On the digital side, nagariknews.com and myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com are widely read news portals, and myRepublica is a recognised English-language source frequently cited internationally.

Nepal Republic Media positions itself on impartial reporting and analysis, and the company grew from a small founding team into one of Nepal's larger newsrooms. While its broadcast footprint is smaller than that of Kantipur, the combination of a major Nepali daily, a well-regarded English daily and popular news websites makes NRM one of the country's most influential private media houses.

Annapurna Media Network is a cross-platform house grouped around the Annapurna Post newspaper and the AP1 television channel. Annapurna Post, a Nepali-language daily, was founded on 12 December 2002, and the network expanded into broadcasting with AP1 (AP1 HD), which launched in 2017 and has become one of Nepal's prominent private news channels.

In print, AMN publishes the Nepali-language Annapurna Post and the English-language weekly The Annapurna Express. Its television arm is AP1 HD, its radio presence is Radio Annapurna Nepal, and its online outlets include annapurnapost.com and theannapurnaexpress.com. The group has publicly described consolidating these print, television, radio and digital assets under the Annapurna Media Network banner.

AMN is led by Capt. Rameshwar Thapa, an aviation entrepreneur well known in Nepal's business community. The house is notable for pairing a mass-market Nepali daily with an English weekly aimed at a more analytical readership, and for building AP1 into a competitive alternative to the older television brands.

Image Group of Companies holds a pioneering place in Nepal's broadcast history. It launched Image Channel, widely regarded as Nepal's first private television venture, which went on air on 25 January 1997 through a broadcast block on Nepal Television before private channels were fully liberalised. The group was also an early mover in private radio.

Its radio arm, Image FM 97.9, began on 7 January 1999 (23 Poush 2055 BS), originally branded KATH FM and initially limited to the Kathmandu Valley audience. The group later added a dedicated 24-hour news station, Image News FM 103.6, on 14 September 2008 (29 Bhadra 2065 BS), broadening its footprint from entertainment into news radio.

Image Group's strength lies in broadcast rather than daily newspapers, making it a useful counterpoint to the print-led houses above. Its television and FM brands remain long-running fixtures of the Nepali airwaves, and its early entry gives it a place in any account of how private broadcasting developed in Nepal after the 1990 democratic opening.

Cross-media ownership shapes how news reaches audiences in Nepal. Because a single company can own a top newspaper, a leading television channel, an FM network and a news website, editorial decisions and commercial pressures inside one house ripple across several platforms at once. For advertisers this concentrates buying power; for researchers and readers it means that apparent diversity of outlets can mask a smaller number of ultimate owners.

For job-seekers, the map is practical: the newsroom career ladder in Nepal largely runs through these houses and their regional bureaus. Understanding which brands sit under which company, for example that Nagarik and Republica share a newsroom, or that Annapurna Post and AP1 belong to the same network, helps in targeting applications and understanding editorial cultures.

It is worth noting that ownership structures, corporate leadership and outlet line-ups do change over time as companies launch, rebrand or close individual products. For the most current legal status of a specific title, Press Council Nepal's registration records are the authoritative reference, while each group's own 'About' pages disclose current leadership and outlet lists. Cross-check this directory with our newspaper, television and radio directories for outlet-level detail.