Somali National TV
Somali National Television, known as SNTV and in Somali as Telefishinka Qaranka Soomaaliyeed, is the state television station of the Federal Government of Somalia. Headquartered in Mogadishu, it is the country's principal public service broadcaster, regulated by the Somali Ministry of Information and broadcasting around the clock on terrestrial and satellite platforms to viewers inside Somalia and in the Somali diaspora abroad, including satellite audiences in Europe and the United Kingdom. Its history falls into two distinct eras. The original service, founded on 17 August 1983, was Somalia's first regular television station and operated until it ceased during the civil war. After a hiatus of twenty years, the station was officially relaunched on 4 April 2011 by the Transitional Federal Government. SNTV still counts 1983 as the year of its establishment, and it has continued to develop since its return, adding a sister channel, new studios and improved satellite facilities.
The First Television Service in Somalia
Regular television broadcasting in Somalia began on 17 August 1983, making the national station the country's first regular television service. The launch was financed with funds obtained from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, an early sign of how dependent Somali broadcasting infrastructure was on external support. Before the launch, the Ministry of Information and National Guidance had drawn up plans for two transmitters, of 100 watts and 500 watts respectively, which indicates how modest the technical footprint of the new service was expected to be. The station was initially known as Telefishanka J.D. Soomaaliya, the Television of the Somali Democratic Republic, and relatively little information survives from this first phase of its existence compared with the documentation available for the relaunched channel.
Broadcasting Under the Siad Barre Government
During the government of Siad Barre, the station's reception was limited to Mogadishu and its immediate surroundings, so television in this period was effectively a service for the capital rather than for the nation as a whole. The station broadcast on VHF channel 6. Accounts of its hours differ slightly between sources: some describe programmes in Somali and Arabic for two hours a day, rising to three hours on Fridays and holidays, while others describe three hours per evening and four on Fridays. Either way, this was a small evening service, far removed from the continuous broadcasting of the modern channel. One programme from the station's beginnings that is remembered by name is Todobaadkii Hore Iyo Aduunka, meaning The Past Week and Around the World, a news programme presented by the Somali journalist Axmed Siciid. That a single news programme from the 1980s remains identifiable underlines both the limited scale of the original schedule and the importance of news within it.
Civil War and the Loss of the Station
The original service ceased operating during the Somali civil war, which began with the fall of the Siad Barre government in 1991. The station was demolished during the civil strife of that period, according to accounts of Somali media infrastructure, and Somalia was left without a government television station for two decades. Private and regional stations eventually emerged in different parts of the country, but there was no national state broadcaster. A step towards restoring one came on 27 April 2002, when the facilities of the former national station were formally taken over, with Artan Ali Warsame handing them to the Ministry of Information of the transitional administration. Even then, nearly nine more years passed before a national television service returned to air, reflecting the slow rebuilding of state institutions in Somalia.
Experimental Broadcasts and the 2011 Relaunch
On 18 March 2011, the Ministry of Information of the Transitional Federal Government began experimental broadcasts of the new television channel. At relaunch, SNTV used the Thaicom satellite, the same satellite used by private Somali stations such as Universal TV, Somali Channel and Horn Cable TV, which placed the state service alongside the commercial broadcasters its audience already knew. After the twenty-year hiatus, the station was officially relaunched on 4 April 2011, in a ceremony associated with the Somali president of the time, as part of an initiative to develop the national telecommunications sector. Contemporary descriptions of the relaunch noted that it was the first time a government television station had operated since 1991, and that the new service broadcast 24 hours a day via satellite. One account of the relaunch explained that the station had been launched partly to counter the sophisticated media campaign of the government's Islamist opponents, Al-Shabaab, a purpose that has remained part of the station's story ever since.
The Relaunched Channel and Its Audience
The modern SNTV broadcasts 24 hours a day and can be viewed both within Somalia and abroad via terrestrial and satellite platforms. In its first months the relaunched service broadcast exclusively in Somali, with plans announced to introduce some programmes in English and Arabic; reference listings for the channel give its languages as Somali, Arabic and English. Its main responsibility, as the principal public service broadcaster, is to provide public service broadcasting throughout the country, and it is regulated by the Ministry of Information, Posts and Telecommunication of the Somali Council of Ministers. For the large Somali diaspora, including the long-established Somali community in Britain, satellite carriage means the state channel from Mogadishu sits on the same receivers as diaspora-run stations based in London and elsewhere, giving SNTV a role in connecting expatriate viewers with official news and national programming from home.
Anniversaries, Training and New Studios
SNTV has treated its 1983 founding as its official birthday despite the twenty-year interruption. In 2022 the channel held a special ceremony for the 39th anniversary of its establishment, counting continuously from the original launch. Development of the relaunched station has involved international partners. In 2021, the Finnish NGO Vikes assisted with training for new children's programmes and with improving SNTV's equipment. On 9 February 2025, SNTV inaugurated new studios built with the help of CIMIC, the Italian cooperation agency working in Somalia. Later that year, on 18 July 2025, the station's satellite reception was improved following the opening of a Media Satellite Teleport, described in coverage of the event as the first such facility in Somalia in 35 years. These milestones show a broadcaster still building basic production and distribution infrastructure that stations in wealthier countries take for granted.
SNTV2 and SNTV Daljir
In 2021 a second channel, SNTV2, began broadcasting, devoting its schedule mainly to human interest topics. On 23 November 2022 that service was replaced by SNTV Daljir, a channel created specifically to counter Al-Shabaab propaganda as the Somali government pursued an offensive against the group that combined military action with a campaign against its ideology. The launch of a dedicated channel for that purpose made explicit something that had been present since the 2011 relaunch: Somali state television is expected not only to inform and entertain but also to compete for audiences with an armed opponent that runs its own media operations. SNTV Daljir therefore sits alongside the flagship channel as a more targeted service, while the main SNTV channel continues its general mix of national programming.
The Somaliland Ban
SNTV's claim to be a national broadcaster is complicated by Somalia's political geography. In June 2019, according to reports carried by BBC Monitoring and attributed to Garowe Online, the Information Minister of Somaliland banned SNTV from being beamed into households in Somaliland. Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and operates its own government and its own state channel, Somaliland National TV, does not accept Mogadishu's authority. The ban illustrates that SNTV's satellite footprint and its effective domestic reach are not the same thing: the signal can be broadcast nationally and internationally, but a regional administration can still act to keep the federal government's channel out of its households.
Place in Somali Media
Somalia has one official government-run television station alongside a number of private networks, and SNTV is that official station. Around it sits a varied landscape of private broadcasters such as the Eastern Television Network and Somali Broadcasting Corporation in Bosaso, Horn Cable Television in Hargeisa, and diaspora stations broadcasting into Somalia from abroad, including Universal TV from London. Within that landscape, SNTV's distinction is its status: it is the voice of the federal state, funded and regulated through the Ministry of Information, with a public service remit for the whole country. Its survival since 2011, after twenty years off air, and its continued investment in studios, training and satellite facilities make it one of the clearest institutional symbols of the Somali state's reconstruction, as well as a daily source of news and national programming for viewers at home and in the diaspora.
