Television in Iraq

1979-2003

"Iraqi TV" was the primary TV station in Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power. Until the 2003 invasion of Iraq, its main coverage was patriotic music, government news and propaganda. It was bombed off the air in the 2003 invasion.

Another TV channel called Youth Channel (Qanaat Al-Shabaab) started broadcasting in 1994 and contained many subtitled movies and Western music before the 2003 invasion. Scenes of mature content were edited out of these movies, as to make them more suitable to the culture, community and age ranges of viewers.

Because Iraqi television was free to watch for anyone owning a proper satellite receiver in a proper region, it also received a substantial amount of attention from viewers in countries other than Iraq, especially during the 2003 invasion of the country.

Although corporate media portrayed Iraqi television largely as an antiquated media, it still gathered a small Western audience.^{[citation needed]}

Because Iraqi TV had kept on broadcasting videos showing Saddam Hussein alive or dead to divert Army attention from trying to locate him, cutting the station off air was a major priority.

The last five minutes of Iraqi TV was started with an unidentified Ba'ath party representative/reporter, who was giving a speech outside of Saddam's Radwaniyah palace. Then it showed a group of people parading and celebrating Saddam and the Ba'ath party for protecting of Iraq. After two minutes of parading, the screen suddenly blacked out, giving evidence of the time the station was bombed off. The 30-year-old channel had ended.

2003-present

Many TV stations have appeared since the fall of Saddam including:

• Al Iraqiya, the government-financed television station
• Al Sharqiya, Iraq's first privately owned satellite TV station
• Al Sumaria, an independent Iraqi satellite TV network
• Nawa TV, an Iraqi TV station broadcasting in Arabic and Kurdish
• Al-Baghdadia TV, Arab nationalist channel which opposed the occupation, the insurgency and dictatorship. The owner's family were heavily abused during Saddam Hussain's reign
• Al Forat, the SIIC TV station
• Ashur TV
• Biladi
• Baghdad TV
• Al-Ifaq TV, channel of Nuri al-Maliki
• Al-Rasheed TV
• Ahlulbayt TV
• Al Masar
• Al Fayha
• Ishtar TV, an Assyrian & Chaldean TV station
• CNNNN Iraq