TV de Mauritanie (TVM)

Télévision de Mauritanie (TVM) is Mauritania’s national public-service television broadcaster. Founded in 1980 as part of the former Office de Radio Télévision de Mauritanie (ORTM), the channel became autonomous on 10 July 1984 and was constituted as a public industrial-and-commercial establishment (EPIC) in 1990 and as a public administrative establishment (EPA) in 1991. Council of Ministers decrees adopted in 2011 transformed both TVM and Radio Mauritanie into sociétés anonymes operating under contrat-programme with the state, in the context of the wider audiovisual liberalisation that opened the sector to private broadcasters. Broadcasting from headquarters in Tevragh Zeina, Nouakchott, the broadcaster operates a flagship channel, Al Mouritaniya, motto “تجمعنا” (“It gathers us”), alongside three thematic channels, and broadcasts in Arabic (Standard and Hassaniya), French, Wolof, Pulaar and Soninké.

Media assets

Television: Al Mouritaniya2, Al Mouritaniya Al Thakafiya, Al Mouritaniya Al Riyadiya

Ownership and governance

TVM is a state-owned société anonyme (TVM-SA), having been transformed from a public administrative establishment (EPA) by Council of Ministers decrees adopted in 2011 alongside the parallel reorganisation of Radio Mauritanie. The two companies operate under a contrat-programme with the state, and form, together with Télédiffusion de Mauritanie (TDM-SA), created in its current institutional form by Décret n°2024/PM/MCJSRP of 2 February 2024 and Loi 2024-018, the public audiovisual cluster (Pôle de l’audiovisuel public). The Prime Minister appoints the President of the Board of Directors and other board members are named through ministerial decree.

The broadcaster falls under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, Arts, Communication and Relations with Parliament / Government Spokesperson, currently headed by El Houssein Ould Meddou (the former president of the Haute Autorité de la Presse et de l’Audiovisuel who was appointed to the cabinet portfolio in August 2024). The HAPA itself, which has been led by Mohamed Abdallahi Lahbib since September 2024, holds statutory approval power over the appointment of directors-general of public audio-visual bodies under Law 018-2012.

The current Director-General of TVM is Sidi Abdallah Mohamed Lemine Ould Saleck, identified in his role in recent reporting by the official Agence Mauritanienne d’Information covering a ceremony honouring TVM staff for their professional contribution. The State Media Monitor baseline notes that the state holds 95% direct ownership of the broadcaster with the remaining 5% held indirectly through affiliated public entities, citing 2024 filings with Mauritania’s Court of Accounts.

A 2024 amendment to the media law established an inter-ministerial advisory committee tasked with overseeing governance reforms at state media institutions including TVM. According to the State Media Monitor review, the committee has remained largely symbolic, with limited influence over actual appointments or editorial processes.

Source of funding and budget

TVM’s budget is heavily reliant on government subsidies.

The 2020 and 2021 figures are drawn from budget laws (Loi de Finances); the 2023 and 2025 allocations were cited in parliamentary debates and ministerial briefings, with the 2025 figure noted in coverage of the Council of Ministers’ March session. USD equivalents are calculated using average annual exchange rates (around 36 MRU per USD for the 2020–2021 period). The 2025 provisional budget includes a new digital-infrastructure line item earmarked for modernising signal transmission in Nouakchott and key regional capitals. No comparable disaggregated figures for 2022, 2024 or 2026 were identified during this review.

Editorial independence

While there is no legal stipulation mandating a pro-government editorial stance, the State Media Monitor review records that TVM routinely prioritises presidential and ministerial activities, with minimal airtime granted to opposition voices or independent civil-society actors. Despite recurring promises of editorial reform, no domestic regulatory framework currently monitors or guarantees the broadcaster’s editorial independence, and the absence of an external complaints mechanism or public editorial charter continues to raise questions about transparency and accountability.

The capacity of TVM leadership to exercise direct editorial control was illustrated in January 2025, when the former Director-General Sunniya Mint Sidi Haiba dismissed the broadcaster’s training director, Moussa Ould Bouhli, following his Facebook Live broadcasts; local press coverage described the dismissal in the context of a “marked decline” in press freedom in Mauritania over recent years.

These conditions place TVM firmly in the State-Controlled (SC) category. The broadcaster is a state-owned société anonyme operating under a contrat-programme with the state, governed by a board whose President is appointed by the Prime Minister and whose other members are named by ministerial decree, with its Director-General appointed by the Council of Ministers under a process that uses HAPA’s statutory approval power as the principal oversight check. It is primarily funded through state subsidy without a meaningful commercial-revenue base, lacks any statutory editorial-independence safeguard, and operates within a wider environment in which direct intervention by leadership in personnel matters has remained a recent reality. The classification is unchanged from 2022, and the developments of the review period reinforce rather than alter it: leadership continues to be drawn from within the state apparatus, the unrealised 2024 advisory committee has not produced concrete governance reform, and the deteriorating wider press-freedom environment has proceeded within the same structural configuration of direct state ownership and supervision. The SC classification continues to apply for 2026.

AI and digital policy

No TVM-specific published policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure, or content-provenance standards such as C2PA was identified. The broadcaster maintains a digital presence through its tvm.mr platform and operates an HD simulcast of its flagship channel, but no sector-specific framework governing AI-generated or synthetic news content in Mauritania’s state media was identified.

May 2026