Tribun Network is a newspaper chain and online news outlet in Indonesia owned by Kompas Gramedia. The group owns 22 local newspapers and one national newspaper across 24 cities and regencies in Indonesia.
History
In the late 1980s, the Department of Information asked major newspapers to assist minor local newspapers that were hampered by the press permit (SIUPP) problem.The government restricted advertising space to 30% of all content for newspapers not aiding minor newspapers.[1]
In 1987, Kompas Gramedia took over ownership of the Sriwijaya Post in Palembang and established the subsidiary PT Indopersda Primamedia (Persda) to assist regional newspapers in need. In 1988, Kompas Gramedia took over Mimbar Swadaya, a weekly newspaper in Banda Aceh, rebranding it as Serambi Indonesia, and the weekly newspaper Surya in Surabaya, which began publishing daily. Kompas Gramedia took over the Pos Kupang daily in 1992, and in 1994, the Banjarmasin Post.[2][user-generated source]
Persda later strengthened its business by publishing its own regional newspapers in other cities under the Tribun brand.The first newspaper to hold the brand, Tribun Kaltim, was published in 2003 in Balikpapan, followed by Tribun Timur (Makassar) and Tribun Jabar (Bandung), among others.
In 2010, Persda rebranded to Tribun Network, and launched the unified tribunnews.com online portal.[3]
In 2014, Tribun Network published a national oriented sports newspaper, Super Ball[4] as a spin-off of the football section of its members newspaper. Its online portal, which was originally a subdomain of Tribunnews.com, is currently a subdomain of Bolasport.com.[5]
List of newspapers
| Name | Locale | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Serambi Indonesia | Banda Aceh, Aceh | |
| Tribun Medan | Medan, North Sumatra | |
| Tribun Pekanbaru | Pekanbaru, Riau | |
| Tribun Batam | Batam, Riau Islands | |
| Tribun Jambi | Jambi, Jambi | |
| Sriwijaya Post | Palembang, South Sumatra | |
| Tribun Sumsel | Palembang, South Sumatra | |
| Bangka Pos | Pangkalpinang, Bangka Belitung | |
| Pos Belitung | Tanjung Pandan, Bangka Belitung | |
| Tribun Lampung | Bandar Lampung, Lampung | |
| Tribun Jakarta | Special Capital Region of Jakarta | Digital publication, now defunct |
| Warta Kota | Special Capital Region of Jakarta | |
| Tribun Jabar | Bandung, West Java | |
| Tribun Jateng | Semarang, Central Java | |
| Tribun Jogja | Yogyakarta, Special Region of Yogyakarta | |
| Surya | Surabaya, East Java | |
| Tribun Pontianak | Pontianak, West Kalimantan | |
| Tribun Kaltim | Balikpapan, East Kalimantan | |
| Banjarmasin Post | Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan | |
| Tribun Timur | Makassar, South Sulawesi | |
| Tribun Manado | Manado, North Sulawesi | |
| Tribun Bali | Gianyar, Bali | |
| Pos Kupang | Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara | |
| Super Ball | Special Capital Region of Jakarta | National sports newspaper |
Online news
Tribunnews.com is Tribun Network’s online news portal, with the chain’s newspapers publishing via subdomains.
In 2018, Tribunnews.com was the most popular nationally hosted website in Indonesia, averaging 183.2 million visits per month.[6][dead link] It was 38th in the world’s most popular websites by traffic as of April 16, 2020.[7][dead link]
In January 2019, Tribunnews.com was among the seven Indonesian online media outlets with the highest viewership, reaching 150 million Indonesians, or 56% of the population.[8]
Criticism
In 2023, the Makassar branch of the website, Tribun Timur, and its associated YouTube channel were criticized by BBC Monitoring and the Indonesian watchdog Remotivi for their pro-Russian coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[9][10]
References
- ^ Darmo, Herman (11 September 2020). “Rajin ke Daerah untuk Mengelola Koran Kecil yang Masih Rugi”. Serambi News (in Indonesian). Retrieved 30 September 2020.
- ^ “Kelompok Pers Daerah (Tribun)” (in Indonesian). Kompas Gramedia (Facebook page). Retrieved 5 August 2014.
- ^ Dahi, Dahlan (23 March 2010). “Tribunnews.com dan Bendera Tribun Network”. Tribun News (in Indonesian). Retrieved 5 August 2014.
- ^ Darmo, Herman (16 January 2014). “Super Ball, Koran Nasional Bola Terbesar”. Tribunners (in Indonesian). Retrieved 11 October 2020.
- ^ “About Us”. SuperBall.id (in Indonesian). Retrieved 11 October 2020.
- ^ Tribunnews.com Website Lokal Paling Diminati Netizen [Tribunnews.com Local Website Most Attracted by Netizens], Andalas University Library (pustaka.unand.ac.id), 23 May 2018
- ^ “Alexa Top 500 Global Sites”. Alexa Internet. Archived from the original on 16 April 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
- ^ Debra L. Merskin (2019), “Indonesia: Internet”, The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Mass Media and Society, SAGE Publications, ISBN 978-1-4833-7554-0
- ^ “Explainer: Russian influence in Indonesia’s media environment”. BBC Monitoring. 13 May 2024. Retrieved 2 August 2025.
Other Indonesian news outlets such as Tribun Timur have featured pro-Russian messaging in their reporting. This has been evident in their reporting of the war in Ukraine, as soon on Tribune Timur’s YouTube account.
- ^ Heychael, Muhamad (6 December 2023). “Propaganda Rusia Di Tribun Timur (Russian Propaganda in Tribun Timur)”. Remotivi (in Indonesian). Retrieved 24 March 2024.
