TV channels Eritrea

Eritrea's television is as old as the country itself - it arrived with independence and has served as the national screen ever since.

How television came to Eritrea

Television in Eritrea began in 1993, two years after independence, when the national service started broadcasting from Asmara. Ethiopian television had once planned a transmitter in the city, and the United States armed forces had run a small station there in the federation years, but Eri-TV was created in January 1993 with the help of Canadian technicians, its first small transmitter barely covering the capital. Relay stations and a stronger transmitter followed in 2003, together with satellite broadcasts aimed at the large Eritrean diaspora, and digital broadcasting began a year later. In a country of many languages and a far-flung diaspora, the channel became the shared reference point of national life.

The national channel

ERi-TV 1 is the national television channel of Eritrea, carrying news, public affairs and national programming - from Independence Day in May to the life of the regions. Its schedule mixes news with music videos, drama and Eritrean and foreign films, and it is the service beamed abroad by satellite alongside its sister radio station, Dimtsi Hafash.

One broadcaster, many languages

Eri-TV is by law the country's only domestic television broadcaster, governed and funded by the Ministry of Information. It divides its time between the country's main languages - Tigrinya, Arabic, Tigre and English - with some programming in other tongues of the region, and its output is split between the general first channel, an educational second channel and a sports third channel. Eritrea has no independent domestic media - the private press was shut down in 2001 and foreign ownership of media is banned - and radio, too, sits inside the state system, with Dimtsi Hafash broadcasting in nine of the country's languages. Satellite dishes are a common sight in Eritrean towns, and much of the country's viewing happens far from the capital.

For Eritreans at home and abroad, the national channel remains the country's window on itself.