The Islamic Republic Broadcasting organization (IRIB), Iran’s state television, broadcasts Middle Eastern programs via Al Alam TV and iFilm (both in Arabic) and the Al-Kowthar Network. It also maintains Al-Mayadin TV in Lebanon as an independent Arabic network.
Iran is striving to establish an “Axis of Resistance” in the regional media landscape by supporting media outlets it does not own. This term reflects Iran’s alliance with reactionary elements and proxy groups in the region.
While the IRIB’s budget is mentioned in the country’s budget bill, its actual budget is considerably higher. In addition to financial support from the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the Tehran Municipality, and other government organizations, Khamenei typically allocates extra funds in foreign currency to the IRIB from the Foreign Currency Reserve Fund.
For the fiscal year starting in March 2022, the IRIB’s budget in the annual budget bill is 5,289,237,000,000 rials, reflecting a 50% increase from the previous year. However, this figure does not account for the entire budget, and due to a lack of transparency, it is unclear how much is allocated to external services and the Arabic wing. The IRGC significantly contributes to the budget of Arabic services, particularly Al-Alam, and other government organizations donate to the IRIB in exchange for airtime for their public relations.
In 2021, the IRIB received an additional 150 million Euros and 7 trillion rials beyond its official annual budget.
On 26 July 2020, then-IRIB Chief Abdol Ali Ali-Asgari received a letter from Peyman Jebelli, who was head of the IRIB External Services at the time, requesting an additional 130 billion rials to hire 500 new staff members for news and feature programs for Al-Alam (Syria) and the iFilm entertainment network.
Jebelli noted that three Iranian external service networks, including the Arabic Al-Kowthar, were cut off from the satellite service due to a budget deficit, which he blamed on the Rouhani administration.
On 23 June 2020, 202 Iranian parliament members called for a separate budget in foreign currency for the IRIB. Following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018, which caused severe economic issues for Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered the Foreign Currency Reserve Fund to provide additional budgets in US dollars to the IRIB on several occasions.
New IRIB Chief Peyman Jebelli told the Student News Network (SNN) in December 2021: “Our Achilles’ heel is the budget and human resources, which weakens our content. For example, although the Al-Alam network was established to provide news and analysis in Arabic to the region, we struggle to cover breaking news due to budget shortages and low-quality human resources.”
In recent years, the IRGC has consistently filled budget gaps, provided it can impose its own managers on state television. As a result, Al-Alam is reported to be almost entirely controlled by the Guards.
Axis of Resistance Media
On 29 June 2021, as the 10th Assembly of the Union of Islamic Radio and Televisions convened via videoconference in Tehran, Former IRIB Chief Ali-Asgari said that the axis is flourishing and its media “will son wage a media war against Capitalism, the United States and the West.” The theme of the assembly was “Media Justice and freedom of expression.”
He condemned the United States for “taking the Union’s network off the air, confiscating Internet domains, and blocking access to Resistance websites.” The conference, which was not held in the previous two years, was held with the virtual presence of delegates from Kabul, Baghdad, Beirut, Gaza, Sana, and Istanbul.
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