Sudan National Broadcasting Corporation (SNBC)

SudanTV is the state-owned national television broadcaster of Sudan, with its roots stretching back to December 1962 when it began experimental transmissions in the Khartoum region, becoming operational in 1963, making Sudan one of Africa’s earliest adopters of television. Today it operates under the Sudan National Broadcasting Corporation (SNBC), an Arabic-language network that has remained a central pillar of the country’s state media landscape, even as the 2023–2026 civil war has profoundly disrupted operations and inflicted devastating physical damage on the broadcaster’s Omdurman headquarters. Earlier SMM records identify Sudan TV Channel 1, Channel 2, and Channel 3, but the current active status of each service is not known. SNBC is a government-owned and operated Arabic-language national broadcaster within Sudan’s state information system, under the political authority of the Ministry of Culture and Information.

Methodological note on jurisdiction

Since 15 April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (President of the Transitional Sovereignty Council) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group under Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti.” The conflict has produced two competing claims to state authority: the internationally recognised Transitional Sovereignty Council government, which returned to Khartoum on 11 January 2026 after SAF battlefield gains in 2025 including the recapture of the Republican Palace in March 2025 and the restoration of army control over much of the capital, and the RSF-aligned Sudan Founding Alliance/TASIS rival administration, which announced a parallel government on 26 July 2025, naming Mohamed Hassan al-Taishi as Prime Minister in Nyala. The African Union rejected recognition of the parallel government on 29 July 2025. SNBC operates from SAF-aligned territory and reports on behalf of the internationally recognised government; no evidence was found that SNBC produces content for the RSF-aligned parallel administration.

Media assets

Television: Sudan TV Channel 1, Sudan TV Channel 2, Sudan TV Channel 3

Ownership and governance

Sudan TV / SNBC operates within Sudan’s state information system, under the political authority of the Ministry of Culture and Information. The station’s leadership has historically been appointed, and may be dismissed at will, by the Prime Minister, underscoring the broadcaster’s limited institutional autonomy. Publicly available sources do not show an autonomous board, independent appointment framework, or enforceable editorial-independence safeguards comparable to a public-service model.

The supervisory ministry has seen significant changes during the war. The Ministry of Culture and Information has been led by Khaled Ali Al-Aiser, a Sudanese journalist and former presenter at Al-Sharqiyya, previously a news editor for the London-based newspaper Al Zaman, since November 2024, when he was appointed by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, succeeding Graham Abdel Qader. Al-Aiser has been a visible public-facing spokesperson for the SAF-aligned government, including his 21 March 2025 confirmation on X of the SAF’s recapture of Khartoum’s Republican Palace.

The internationally recognised government has been led by Prime Minister Kamil Idris, who was named by the Transitional Sovereignty Council on 19 May 2025 and sworn in on 31 May 2025. On 11 January 2026, Idris announced from Khartoum that the government had returned to the capital after a nearly three-year relocation to Port Sudan, describing the move as “final and comprehensive” while acknowledging that the Presidential Palace and several ministry buildings remained too damaged for use.

Source of funding and budget

According to eight African media experts interviewed in March 2024 and March 2025 by the State Media Monitor team, Sudan TV relies almost entirely on state funding. Operations are sustained through allocations from the national budget; the broadcaster does not publicly disclose its financial statements or detailed expenditures, keeping its fiscal affairs largely opaque. Updated 2025–26 SNBC budget figures have not been made public, in line with the broadcaster’s long-standing pattern of non-disclosure.

The civil war has inflicted catastrophic physical damage on SNBC infrastructure. On 15 April 2023, Sudan TV abruptly stopped broadcasting when the Omdurman headquarters was attacked by RSF forces at the start of the war. The RSF held the building for approximately 11 months before the SAF announced its recapture on 12 March 2024, following heavy fighting. The Ministry of Information said that the fighting had left the station devastated, with “extensive fire damage to the radio buildings, destruction of television studios, and the complete loss of new external broadcasting equipment” from theft or fire, in addition to the theft of all the station’s vehicles. SNBC temporarily relocated operations to Port Sudan during the war, and public broadcasts resumed under SAF-aligned control after the March 2024 recapture, although the broadcaster has not publicly disclosed the extent to which the pre-war Omdurman headquarters and studios have been restored.

Independent monitoring reports cited by eMM Media Monitoring estimate that approximately 90% of media facilities in Khartoum, including TV and radio infrastructure, were destroyed during the war’s early phases, affecting both state and private media. PM Kamil Idris in his 11 January 2026 Khartoum statement forecast that inflation would fall to 70 percent in 2026 while GDP would expand by 10 percent, but the funding implications for SNBC specifically have not been publicly disclosed.

Editorial independence

Sudan TV’s editorial output is tightly aligned with government policy, operating effectively as a mouthpiece for the ruling authorities. The station rarely, if ever, deviates from the official narrative, and its news agenda reflects the state’s priorities. Historical reference sources report that a military censor worked with Sudan TV to ensure programming reflected government policy and perceived cultural values; during the 2023–2026 war, Sudan TV’s output has remained closely aligned with the SAF-aligned government. There is no legal framework or independent oversight mechanism in place to guarantee or evaluate editorial independence at Sudan TV. In the absence of statutory safeguards or watchdog bodies, journalistic autonomy remains effectively absent.

Under SAF control since the March 2024 recapture, Sudan TV has functioned as an official outlet for the army, airing reports framed around military gains, including the 21 March 2025 SAF recapture of the Republican Palace, the restoration of army control over much of the capital through 2025, and the 11 January 2026 return of the government to Khartoum. The broadcaster has endured targeted lethal attacks during the war. On 21 March 2025, an RSF drone strike hit a Sudan TV vehicle near the presidential palace in Khartoum during reporting on frontline developments. The CPJ-documented attack killed three Sudan TV media workers (producer/director Farouk al-Zahir, camera operator Magdy Abdel Rahman, and editor/director Ibrahim Mudawi) along with their driver, Wajeh Jaafar. CPJ has documented a wider rising pattern of drone strikes that has killed multiple journalists in Sudan, with most fatalities attributed to RSF forces.

The 2023–2026 civil-war environment has produced one of the most catastrophic press-freedom landscapes in the world. Reporters Without Borders ranked Sudan 161st of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, a drop of 5 places from 156/180 in 2025, identifying “recurring armed conflict” as the primary reason for Sudan’s continued decline. Press-freedom monitors and Sudanese journalist organisations report a catastrophic environment, with different figures depending on the source: Ayin Network and Sudan Tribune reporting on World Press Freedom Day 2026 cited the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate’s finding that 34 journalists had been killed and 680 violations documented since the war began on 15 April 2023; CPJ reported separately at least seven journalists missing in Sudan as of mid-April 2026, most cases attributed to RSF forces.

The press-freedom landscape in both warring jurisdictions remains hostile. In RSF-controlled areas: Adam Issac Minan, a reporter for North Darfur State Radio and Television Corporation, was kidnapped by RSF on 5 April 2026 in Kutum, North Darfur, and transferred to El Fasher; three female journalists from Nyala State Radio (Mawaheb Ibrahim, Zahraa Muhammad Al-Hassan, and Ishraqah Abdulrahman) have not been heard from since being detained by RSF on 28 February 2026. In SAF-controlled areas: journalists Hajar Sulaiman and Miyahelnil Elmubarak were briefly detained in March 2026 over reporting on corruption within prosecutorial offices and on middle-school exams respectively. On 8 April 2026, the Ministry of Culture, Information, Antiquities and Tourism suspended independent news platform Sudania 24 and withdrew its licences; subsequently, Radio Dabanga reported that media organisations were given until 1 June 2026 to regularise legal status or face legal penalties. These constraints affect Sudan’s wider independent media environment; SNBC itself, as a Ministry of Culture and Information arm, is not subject to them.

AI and digital policy

SNBC maintains a digital presence including terrestrial and satellite distribution channels noted above. No public SNBC-specific policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure, or content provenance (such as C2PA) was identified in this review. At the national-policy level, the Ministry of Culture and Information’s 8 April 2026 directive on operating licences for all media outlets, and proposed amendments to the 2009 Press and Publications Act under discussion in 2025, illustrate the ministry’s continuing emphasis on licensing and content-control mechanisms rather than on AI disclosure or content-provenance frameworks. The 2025 proposed amendments have drawn criticism from press-freedom organisations and Sudanese journalist groups for introducing ambiguous terms such as “national security requirements” that could enable arbitrary interpretation, with security agencies potentially regulating electronic media. Press-freedom organisations including CPJ and Radio Dabanga have raised concerns that these amendments could further codify state control over media licensing.

May 2026