Radio Networks

Radio Iran was formally inaugurated in Tehran on 24 April 1940. Its early schedule combined news, music, religious broadcasts, and other programming; public loudspeakers helped bring broadcasts to people without receivers. Radio therefore developed both as a household medium and as a shared public experience. Encyclopaedia Iranica describes it as Iran’s first truly national modern communications medium. s1

National Iranian Radio and Television, generally abbreviated NIRT, brought radio and television under a common organization in 1971. After the revolution, broadcasting operated under Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB. These institutional names belong to different political periods and should not be used interchangeably when identifying historical recordings. s1s3

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The network landscape includes services identified with culture, economics, health, youth, sport, and drama alongside general broadcasting. State Media Monitor’s inventory lists Radio Iran, Payam, Farhang, Saba, and other services within IRIB. Such names help readers distinguish programme identities, but a list of networks does not establish how many people listen to each one. s3

Regional broadcasting also has a substantial history. Iranica records the expansion of radio provision and programming beyond a single national Persian-language schedule. For international readers, the important distinction is between a network’s editorial identity, the language of a particular programme, and the geographic reach of its transmitters. These describe different aspects of broadcasting; none can reliably substitute for the others. s1

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Golha, meaning “Flowers,” demonstrates why Iranian radio history extends beyond news. Broadcast from March 1956 to February 1979, the programme series explored relationships between Persian poetry and traditional music. Its cultural purpose was to make those relationships accessible to a broad public. Poetry was consequently part of the programme’s organizing idea, rather than simply an introduction to a musical performance. s2

The later Golha Project gives this broadcasting history a research afterlife. According to its own account, the preservation project began in 2005; British Library Endangered Archives Programme funding supported collecting and digitization in 2006, and a digital collection was deposited at the British Library in July 2007. Its acknowledgements also document contributions from performers and announcers. This is evidence of preservation activity, rather than proof that every historical broadcast is freely reusable. s4

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A service broadcasting in Persian is not necessarily based in Iran. The BBC’s submission to a UK parliamentary inquiry states that BBC Persian radio ended in March 2023 as the organization redirected resources toward television and digital services. That closure concerned a distribution service, rather than the disappearance of BBC Persian altogether. s5

This example illustrates a useful way to read the wider radio landscape: identify the broadcaster, the intended audience, and the delivery method separately. Historical schedules, preserved recordings, and contemporary audio services answer different questions about what Iranian listeners could hear and how broadcasting reached them. s4s5

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