About Iraq 24 Television

Iraq 24 Television

Iraq 24 Television, usually styled Iraq 24 or Iraq24, is a Baghdad-based Iraqi television channel devoted to business, the economy and current affairs. In a national television market crowded with general news channels owned by political parties and religious movements, Iraq 24 occupies a narrower and more unusual niche: it is classified in channel listings as a business channel, and its documented output centres on the Iraqi economy, private-sector development, markets and entrepreneurship. Channel listings credit its ownership to Ali Wayieh, while the Iraq Britain Business Council, in a profile of the business group EMAAL, credits Dr Ali Mahjob, EMAAL's chief executive and owner, with starting the Iraq24 TV station focused on business. The channel broadcasts in Arabic via satellite and works closely with Iraqi and international business organisations.

A business channel in a political media market

Most Iraqi satellite channels compete over politics. Iraq 24 was set up to compete over economics. The Iraq Britain Business Council describes Iraq24 straightforwardly as a TV station focused on business, started by Dr Ali Mahjob of EMAAL, and in its own reporting refers to Iraq 24 as a news channel that has been very helpful to the council's work in Iraq. That relationship captures the channel's position: it is a media outlet whose natural partners are business councils, companies and economic conferences rather than party headquarters. Its classification in reference listings of Iraqi television as a business channel, owned by Ali Wayieh, places it alongside the state broadcaster's own business service as one of the few Iraqi outlets for which the economy, rather than politics or religion, is the stated specialism.

Founding figures and the EMAAL connection

Two names attach to Iraq 24 in published sources, and they describe different ends of the same venture. Iraqi channel listings name Ali Wayieh as the owner of Iraq 24 Television. The Iraq Britain Business Council, announcing in 2025 that EMAAL had joined the council, states that Dr Ali Mahjob, the chief executive and owner of EMAAL, started Iraq24 TV station focused on business, and had since expanded EMAAL into conference and business consultancy services for Iraq. EMAAL's work, as described by the council, covers six key sectors including oil and energy, maritime, business consultancy and financial services, and the group announced a tax reform conference in Baghdad and a maritime conference focused on the Al Faw port project. The channel and the consultancy come from the same business stable, which explains Iraq 24's editorial centre of gravity: taxation, ports, energy and private companies are its home subjects.

Covering the private sector and economic reform

Iraq 24's documented appearances in business coverage show it doing the work its niche promises. The Iraq Britain Business Council reported a programme on the channel in which Professor Frank Gunter of Lehigh University outlined what Iraq needs to do to support the private sector, drawing on the council's advisory report on the ease of doing business in Iraq, while Shwan Aziz, a member of the council's advisory council, discussed Iraq's energy opportunities on the same programme. Aziz pointed to investment opportunities in power generation, particularly solar and wind, while noting the challenges in transmission, distribution and collecting consumption fees, and argued that expanding the private sector is the only real option to provide jobs and income. A business channel carrying a detailed discussion of an ease-of-doing-business report, electricity economics and small-business growth is performing a function that Iraq's political talk shows rarely attempt.

Tajarib and the entrepreneurship brief

Iraq 24 also carries programming about Iraq's start-up scene. Tajarib, a programme about entrepreneurial experience broadcast on the Iraq 24 TV channel and across Tajarib's social media platforms, was the setting for a notable Iraqi technology announcement: the acquisition of Eduba, a Baghdad education-technology company, for a seven-figure sum by a major Iraqi telecommunications company. Eduba, founded in Baghdad in 2019 by Azad Hassan, Haider Shaaban and Raed Kadhem, began as a school management application, gained significant adoption by private schools and was one of the few such products accredited by the Ministry of Education. Its co-founder discussed on the programme how Iraqi entrepreneurs struggle to raise equity funding without surrendering complete control of their businesses. That a start-up acquisition was announced in a television studio, on a business channel's entrepreneurship programme, illustrates the role Iraq 24 has carved out as a platform where Iraqi private-sector deals and debates are aired.

An economy platform with live market data

The channel has invested in the technical apparatus of business television. Mawja Group, an Iraqi media technology company, reported delivering an Economy Platform for the Iraq24 TV project, built on direct integration with specialised websites providing real-time updates for stock market indices and cryptocurrency prices. Using Aston graphics software, the company established the technical integration with external data sources and programmed the website links so that data is displayed accurately and in real time on Iraq 24's economy platform. An on-demand system was used to update advertisements automatically and to update local market prices continuously, keeping them aligned with market movements as they happen. Live tickers and market data are the furniture of international business channels; Iraq 24's adoption of the same tools marks its attempt to give Iraqi viewers a domestic equivalent focused on Iraqi prices and markets.

Distribution and audience

Iraq 24 broadcasts in Arabic by satellite, listed in satellite guides on Eutelsat 7 West A, the main satellite position for free-to-air viewing across Iraq and the Middle East, where it is categorised among news and business channels. Free-to-air satellite carriage puts the channel in front of the general Iraqi viewing public rather than a pay-TV minority, which matters for a station whose subjects, exchange rates, market prices, tax rules and energy policy, affect households as much as boardrooms. Its name promises the rhythm of a rolling service, Iraq around the clock, while its content, as documented by the business organisations that appear on it and supply its experts, keeps the focus on the economy. In the Iraqi market that combination is distinctive enough that the channel is routinely described by its niche first: a business and news channel from Baghdad.

Working with the Iraq Britain Business Council

The channel's closest documented institutional relationship is with the Iraq Britain Business Council, the organisation that promotes British-Iraqi trade and investment. When EMAAL joined the council, its managing director, Christophe Michels, said the council had known Dr Ali and the Iraq 24 news channel, which had been very helpful to the council, for a number of years, and looked forward to collaborating with EMAAL for the benefit of the wider private sector in Iraq. The traffic ran in both directions: the council's experts and reports received airtime on the channel, including discussion of its ease-of-doing-business research around its 2024 Dubai autumn conference, while the channel gained a stream of economists, energy specialists and business figures as guests. For a specialist channel, such a standing relationship with an international business council is both a source of content and a statement of identity, tying Iraq 24 to the community of companies trying to build Iraq's formal private economy.

Iraq 24's place in Iraqi broadcasting

Iraq's post-2003 television explosion produced hundreds of channels, but very few organised around a subject rather than a patron. The big general channels belong to parties, clerics, militias or media moguls, and their business coverage is usually an extension of their politics. Iraq 24 Television represents the opposite model: a channel whose documented identity is a beat. Its founder's group moved from television into conferences and consultancy on tax reform and the Al Faw maritime project, its programmes host economists debating how to grow the private sector, its entrepreneurship show announces start-up acquisitions, and its screens carry live market data. For researchers and viewers alike, it is the clearest example in contemporary Iraqi television of business journalism as a channel's whole reason to exist.