International Turkish Television (Uluslararası Türkçe TV) to begin broadcasting on the 21st of March

Turkic languages spoken throughout the world. The dark blue indicates countries where it is spoken as an official language; lighter blue shows regions located within other countries.

Well, this is interesting:

Türkçe konuşan ülkeler arasında ilişkileri geliştirmeyi amaçlayan Uluslararası Türkçe TV 21 Mart'ta yayına başlayacak. 24 saat yayın yapacak olan televizyonda her bir ülkeye 4'er saat yayın hakkı tanınacak.

International Turkish Television, aiming to deepen relations between Turkish-speaking nations, will begin broadcasting on the 21st of March. The television to be broadcast 24 hours a day will give 4 hours of broadcasting to each nation.

Let's see, so those six would be Turkey - Azerbaijan - Turkmenistan - Uzbekistan - Kazakhstan - Kyrgyzstan. So how does it work?

Azerbaycan Türkçesinin Türkiye'de anlaşıldığını belirten Şahin, bu nedenle Azerice yayınların olduğu gibi yayımlanacağını, diğer ülkelerin programlarının ise Türkiye Türkçesine tercüme edilerek, alt yazıyla yayına verileceğini belirtti.

(General manager) Şahin said that Azeri Turkish is comprehensible to those in Turkey and thus would be broadcast as is, and that programs for other nations would be translated into Turkish (Istanbul Turkish, that is) with subtitles below.


Though not the language of independent nations, note that some other Turkic languages are easier to understand even than Azeri Turkish (IMO) such as Gagauz, spoken in the south of Moldova (Gagauz Yeri). I have an easy time reading just about anything in Gagauz whereas Azeri still trips me up a fair amount.

Also, don't forget that Uyghur and Uzbek are also very similar (apparently like Turkish and Azeri), which makes the four hours broadcast in Uzbek accessible to those living in Western China as well.