The Media Line: Broadcast Disruptions Spread After Strikes and Satellite Hijacking of Iranian Channels 

Broadcast Disruptions Spread After Strikes and Satellite Hijacking of Iranian Channels 

Messages from the Israeli prime minister and American president appeared on Iranian television feeds after attacks on IRIB-linked sites 

By Omid Habibinia/ The Media Line 

On Sunday evening, two Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) complexes in Tehran were struck by fighter jets, leaving several employees killed or injured. A source also told The Media Line that IRIB executives and the Political Department had been aware for hours on Saturday that Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, had been killed and were preparing how to announce it. 

Following the strikes—whose explosions were visible from more distant parts of Tehran—radio and television transmissions briefly went off the air for several minutes before resuming. A presenter on IRIB’s News Network, broadcasting from an alternative studio near the Jame Jam neighborhood in northern Tehran, said after the signal returned that IRIB had come under US and Israeli attack and that programming was back on the air. News Network and other television channels later faced technical difficulties and a reduced range of programming, while some radio broadcasts experienced serious disruption. 

Before the 12-day war in June, IRIB’s News Network—alongside the IRIB News Agency and its newsroom—operated from the IRIB complex in a building called Sakhteman Shishey (Glass Building) in northern Tehran. That facility was later completely destroyed after being hit by missiles fired from an Israeli fighter jet. Since then, News Network broadcasts have continued from two sites: the network’s former studio near the destroyed facility—much of which had been used by IRIB’s Political Department—and a second studio near Jame Jam. The network has also designated a backup studio in the Channel 4 building, which is also located near the IRIB complex. 

According to a source familiar with IRIB, the broadcaster’s Political Department had planned to establish another studio outside the IRIB complex in the new year for News Network and the IRIB News Agency, and had requested emergency funding. That funding was not approved and was deferred to the next budget year. The same source said that after a sharp decline in IRIB’s commercial advertising revenues this year, driven by the country’s economic turmoil, the organization has struggled to secure a permanent replacement site for its news units. As a result, staff have been dispersed across separate buildings—some outside IRIB’s protected compound—including Jame Jam studios previously used for other productions, as well as scattered administrative buildings nearby. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BIwkDtPSoQ 

Hours after the strike on IRIB, the satellite transmission of Iranian television channels was hijacked, airing messages from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and part of a speech by President Donald Trump addressed to the Iranian people, alongside footage linked to the latest attacks. 

Around midnight Tehran time, Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported that several employees of the state radio service were killed or wounded in Sunday evening’s attack on the Islamic Republic’s main radio center, located in a southern area near central Tehran. 

In Israeli airstrikes on the area—reported to have taken place in several waves in recent hours—Police Station 113 near Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and several nearby military and security sites were also hit. A source close to the area said it remains unclear whether the main radio broadcast building at Arg Square was the intended target or whether blast waves from strikes on nearby security and military facilities caused parts of the radio building to collapse. 

Separately, Noor News, a Telegram channel close to the Islamic Republic’s security circles, reported that in addition to the strikes on IRIB, Channel 2 of the Islamic Republic’s state television, located outside the main IRIB compound, was also attacked. 

https://x.com/omidhabibinia/status/2027600012482408945 

Before the US and Israeli strikes on Iran began, a source told The Media Line that IRIB had shifted into “wartime mode” from midnight on Saturday, preparing for cyberwarfare and potential attacks on live broadcasting capabilities, and adjusting staff shifts to wartime conditions. Another source told The Media Line that news of Khamenei’s death had reached IRIB by Saturday afternoon and that broadcast managers were preparing a plan to announce it in the early hours of the following day.