The Killid Group

Established in 2002 as a media division of Development Humanitarian Services for Afghanistan (DHSA), TKG is playing a lead role in fostering Afghanistan’s independent media sector overall.

TKG’s principal business activities are in the areas of magazine publishing, radio and media distribution. The editorial policy of TKG is to promote moderation and sense of national unity in Afghanistan.

TKG’s corporate policy is dedicated to the provision of an independent, relevant, accurate, reliable, and affordable news and information source for the Afghan people.

TKG publishes the country’s two largest magazines in terms of print run, sales and nationwide reach, Killid Weekly and Mursal Women's Magazine.

Both magazines are published in the nation’s two main languages, Dari and Pashtu and are sold for 9 Afghanis (18 cents) each in the market place. They are sold in each province of the country, each week from over six hundred mobile and stationary selling points and have significant name brand recognition throughout the country making them the ideal advertising venue in Afghanistan.

With a print run of 25,000 copies a week and an actual audience reach of 250,000 through community sharing, Killid Weekly is both TKG’s and Afghanistan’s flagship printed press.

Considered the first independent press in the history of Afghan press to reach many rural and remote areas of the country and the country’s biggest independent general audience newsmagazine to date, Killid Weekly both reflects and forms public opinion in Afghanistan.

Each issue of Killid Weekly features a national and international news round up, sports and entertainment pages and an investigative report which uncovers critical issues from corruption to the role of war lords in Afghan society.

Through the use of regional pages in every issue, Killid Weekly also serves as a forum to highlight issues and opinions coming from Afghanistan’s diverse regions, serving to connect the provinces with the central level and vice versa.

Mursal Women’s Magazine is considered Afghanistan’s first nationally distributed women’s magazine in history and is breaking ground each week by covering a range of women’s issues never before addressed in Afghanistan from women’s rights to political participation and the promotion of literacy and preventative health.

Given the high rate of illiteracy, especially amongst Afghan girls and women, Mursal is written in an easy to read format and is very popular amongst school girls and house wives.

Mursal is often read by those who are literate in their family or community to those who are not. Like Killid Weekly, it is estimated that each copy of the magazine purchased is shared with another ten people thereby significantly expanding Mursal’s weekly print run of 15,000 to an audience of 150,000 a week.

TKG also owns and operates Afghanistan’s first ever talk radio station, Radio Killid. Radio Killid Kabul (RKK FM 88), went on air on National Independence Day, August 19th, making it Afghanistan’s first twenty four-seven talk radio station. More recently, TKG launched another radio stations, Radio Killid Herat, Radio Killid Jalalabad (all FM 88) and soon it will launch Radio Killid stations in Kandahar and Mazar-e Sharif.

All stations are noted for their appeal to a diverse range of listeners, offering a mix of news, hard hitting talk shows, educational and children’s programming, cutting edge interviews and an innovative music program which plays tribute to the importance of Afghanistan’s musical heritage while introducing new regional and international sounds to its listeners.

RKK and RKH have an audience reach of over six million listeners in Kabul and Herat combined.

Radio Killid Kabul's (RKK FM 88) Radio e-Dunya Program Outline

RKK and RKH are focused on generating mass appeal with a family oriented broadcast model which encourages both men and women and their extended family members to share radio listening time together.

TKG’s radio music programs are setting new standards in Afghanistan with the country’s most extensive archive of folkloric (Mahali) and Indo-Afghan classical music. Radio Killid is giving broadcast and studio recording time to the nation’s last living and new generation of classical musicians while also introducing its listeners to a range of regional, world and western musical sounds offered in the context of special programs which explain each musical genre and musician.

In addition to publishing and radio, TKG owns and operates a national distribution company called NyeExpress.

NyeExpress is Afghanistan’s leading privately owned media and general package distribution service. It has succeeded in connecting the capital city and its regions in a way never before done in Afghanistan.

By redefining the humanitarian distribution networks used by TKG’s parent organization, Development Humanitarian Services for Afghanistan, into commercial distribution networks, NyeExpress has created an innovative and valuable way to distribute media and other commercial products to key markets nationwide cost effectively, quickly and reliably.

NyeExpress has a daily distribution capacity in each of the main markets of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces with special deliveries to more remote areas within 48 hours.

In addition, by sharing the distribution network it established to get its own in house publication’s Killid Weekly and Mursal to market with other publishers, TKG has established a solid revenue base for itself and is playing a leading role in expanding the reach of the printed press in Afghanistan overall.

NyeEXpress is distributing over seventy client based titles. From news papers, magazines, quarterly journals, books, public service announcements and even radio productions to public service announcements.

Clients range from the Dari-English language news paper Kabul Weekly to the children’s quarterly Parvaz and the new magazine dedicated to Afghan cinema published by Golden Globe and Cannes award winner Siddiq Barmak, called Cinema. NyeExpress also distributes a diverse selection of books from Afghan classics to contemporary literature, poetry and comics and was recently contracted to distribute the ISAF newspaper, weekly, in Herat.

In addition, during the past two years, NyeExpress has been contracted by the UN and other international agencies to distribute hundreds of thousands of public service announcement posters and special publications on topics ranging from election participation to health related issues.

For instance, during the lead up to the elections, NyeExpress was contracted by the UN and other international agencies to distributed hundreds of thousands of copies of special editions of Killid and Mursal magazine’s on voter registration and public participation in the elections.

NyeExpress has also been contracted to take over the distribution of four Government-owned papers and has opened its distribution business to non media related products such as candies and other consumable products and given its strong and stable nationwide presence, is the ideal venue from which to introduce new products into the marketplace.