Did Euronews Just Turn a Profit?

Euronews annonces record €77 million 2025 revenues

“In 2025, we achieved a turnaround — economically and journalistically,” Strunz said, framing the results as proof that Euronews’ editorial strategy and business model are finally aligned. He praised the broadcaster’s “independent, neutral journalism,” insisting that its “independence is non-negotiable” — a loaded assertion in a European media market where ownership, funding and politics are rarely cleanly separated.

While Euronews touts its “best net results” to date, it has not disclosed an exact bottom-line profit figure. What it does highlight are growth metrics that play well in investor and policymaker briefings: more than one billion page views, surging video consumption, and a growing physical footprint across Central Asia and the Middle East.

EU funding, Euronews notes pointedly, now represents just 16 percent of total revenue — offered as evidence that the channel is no longer financially dependent on Brussels, even as it continues to secure exclusive interviews with European Council President António Costa, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and multiple EU commissioners.

With excellent reporters and editors, Euronews’ credibility challenge has never primarily been about traffic or journalistic standing. It is about trust and ownership. The broadcaster’s majority shareholder, Alpac Capital, has well-documented links to Hungarian business interests.

An own-initiative investigation by Portugal’s media regulator ERC, followed by fines from the country’s securities watchdog CMVM, has done little to quieten concerns that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could, if needed or wanted, exert indirect influence over Euronews’ editorial line.

Alpac, which owns 97.6 percent of Euronews, openly highlights its investment footprint in Qatar, Hungary, the Middle East and Central Asia. Media observers take note of the network’s consistently upbeat coverage from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Qatar.

Strunz, a former editor-in-chief of Germany’s Bild tabloid, rejects any suggestion that ownership shapes editorial decisions. But skepticism persists — fueled in part by Strunz’s own past at Bild, where hardline commentary on immigration and Islam helped define the paper’s political profile.

While that tabloid edge has not visibly reshaped Euronews’ reporting, perception matters for a broadcaster that brands itself as Europe’s neutral referee — particularly as the European Commission awarded the network three additional public tenders in 2025.

The bottom line: Euronews appears to have reached profitability in a punishing market for general-interest news outlets operating outside paywalls. But in Brussels and beyond, black ink does not close the debate. It sharpens it — raising a question that goes beyond balance sheets: independent from whom, exactly, and for how long?