Télé Liban

Télé Liban (TL; Arabic: تلفزيون لبنان) is the official state-owned national television broadcaster of the Lebanese Republic, headquartered in Beirut and operating under the Ministry of Information portfolio. Télé Liban’s institutional origins lie in Lebanon’s pioneering commercial television sector: La Compagnie Libanaise de Télévision (CLT), which began broadcasting in 1959, and Télé-Orient, launched in the early 1960s, were merged with state participation in 1977/78 to form Télé Liban, and the broadcaster became wholly state-owned after the Lebanese state bought out the remaining private-sector shares in 1996.

Media assets

Television: Télé-Liban

Ownership and governance

Télé Liban is a state-owned company governed through Lebanese executive authority rather than an arm’s-length public-service broadcaster. Its current ownership structure follows decades of ownership changes: CLT and Télé-Orient were merged with state participation in 1977/78, the resulting company operated for a period with mixed public-private ownership, and the Lebanese state bought out the remaining private shares in 1996, after which Télé Liban became wholly state-owned. Both the Chairperson and the Board of Directors are appointed through Council of Ministers decision-making, with the Ministry of Information playing a central role in institutional oversight. Although Télé Liban has a separate company form, it does not enjoy statutory editorial distance from executive control.

The 2025/26 cycle’s most consequential governance development for Télé Liban was the appointment of Dr Elissar Naddaf Geagea as Chairwoman of the Board of Directors and Director-General. The appointment was confirmed by the Council of Ministers in July 2025, ending the extended vacancy and acting-management arrangements that had characterised Télé Liban’s leadership for much of the preceding period. Naddaf Geagea, previously involved in media and public-communication work including Télé Liban archive initiatives, took up the role with an explicit mandate including archive preservation, programming renewal and institutional modernisation. Lebanese media coverage characterised the appointment process as more transparent and competence-based than earlier politically driven appointments to the broadcaster.

The wider political context for Télé Liban governance during the cycle was reshaped by Lebanon’s political renewal of early 2025: Joseph Aoun was elected President in January 2025 after a more than two-year presidential vacancy, Nawaf Salam was designated Prime Minister and formed a cabinet approved in February 2025, and Paul Morcos was appointed Minister of Information. Earlier privatisation proposals for Télé Liban and Radio Lebanon, including the 2018 advocacy by then-Information Minister Melhem Riachi, did not gain political traction during the cycle, and no structural restructuring or privatisation programme was advanced under the Salam cabinet during the SMM 2025/26 review.

Source of funding and budget

Télé Liban operates on a hybrid funding model overwhelmingly anchored in state subsidies, with advertising revenue having eroded substantially over the past decade as a function of the broadcaster’s marginal audience share and Lebanon’s wider economic collapse.

No updated standalone Télé Liban allocation for the 2025/26 fiscal year was identified in publicly disclosed Ministry of Information or Ministry of Finance documentation reviewed by SMM during the cycle, and Lebanon’s severe currency devaluation and ongoing fiscal shortfalls during the review window have made even prior-cycle allocation levels structurally precarious.

The broadcaster does not publish audited financial reports or public budgets disclosing Télé Liban-specific revenue and expenditure, and the absence of independent audited disclosure for the broadcaster’s operations continued through the SMM 2025/26 review. The cycle produced no structural funding reform: Télé Liban continued to operate as a state-subsidised broadcaster under the Ministry of Information portfolio, and the operational fragility highlighted by Télé Liban’s August 2023 off-air shutdown after staff protested months of unpaid salaries remained a defining precedent for the broadcaster’s economic exposure.

Editorial independence

Télé Liban is widely regarded as lacking editorial autonomy from the Lebanese executive. According to SMM-retained expert sources and media experts consulted during prior cycles, the broadcaster operates under firm government influence, with editorial decisions often reflecting official narratives or political alignments rather than independent journalistic judgement. The broadcaster’s marginal audience share has historically reduced its prominence as a primary instrument of state communications, with Lebanese state and political communication flowing more substantially through privately owned outlets with wider audiences and stronger party or patronage backing.

The 2025/26 cycle introduced a significant new editorial-direction event for Télé Liban. In March 2026, Information Minister Paul Morcos instructed official media outlets, including the National News Agency and Télé Liban, to comply with the government’s decision to restrict the broadcast of Hezbollah speeches and armed-wing statements, avoid verbatim publication of such material, and stop using privileged terminology such as “Islamic Resistance” except where directly quoted. The measure followed the Cabinet’s decision to reassert state authority over decisions of war and peace after Hezbollah’s March 2026 military escalation from Lebanon without state approval. The directive operationally extended executive editorial direction over Télé Liban’s terminology and treatment of Hezbollah-related content.

No statute or legal instrument guaranteeing the editorial independence of Télé Liban has been identified in Lebanese law. While Lebanon’s media-law framework contains general protections for media activity, it does not provide a Télé Liban-specific editorial-independence guarantee, internal editorial charter or external oversight mechanism shielding the broadcaster from political interference.

AI and digital policy

Télé Liban has not published a public-facing institutional AI governance policy. The broadcaster’s principal digital-modernisation activity during the cycle was the continuation of archive-preservation and digitisation work. UNESCO reported in January 2026 that more than 4,500 historical tapes had been cleaned, digitised and preserved, and that the nomination file for “Télé Liban Archive – The Golden Era” had been submitted to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme. This digitisation and preservation work has not been accompanied by a published institutional framework governing the use of generative AI or AI-enabled systems in Télé Liban editorial decision-making, verification, newsroom production, archiving methodology, distribution or audience-facing content.

Classification rationale

Télé Liban remains classified as State-Controlled (SC) for the 2026 cycle. The broadcaster is wholly state-owned with its Chairwoman and Board of Directors appointed through Council of Ministers decision-making, the Ministry of Information plays a central role in institutional oversight, and there is no statutory editorial-independence guarantee, independent oversight body or arm’s-length editorial firewall protecting Télé Liban’s output from government direction; the March 2026 Ministry of Information directive concerning official-media treatment of Hezbollah-related content demonstrated the continued capacity of the executive to direct Télé Liban’s editorial terminology and coverage practice. The broadcaster’s funding is drawn overwhelmingly from state support via the Ministry of Information portfolio, with advertising revenue having eroded substantially due to marginal audience share and Lebanon’s wider economic collapse. The 2025/26 cycle produced no governance, funding or editorial reform sufficient to move Télé Liban out of the SC category despite the political renewal in early 2025 and the appointment of a new Chairwoman/Director-General: the broadcaster continued to function as Lebanon’s official state-owned national television broadcaster under direct Council of Ministers and Ministry of Information authority during a cycle marked by Lebanon’s political reconstitution under President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, renewed security escalation involving Hezbollah and Israel, and executive directives affecting official-media terminology and coverage of Hezbollah-related content.

June 2026