Yemen General Corporation for Radio and TV

The Yemen General Corporation for Radio and Television (YGCRT) is Yemen’s historic national state broadcasting corporation. Before the civil war, it formed part of the unified state media system responsible for public radio and television broadcasting, including national radio services and a network of provincial stations. For SMM purposes, Yemen TV is assessed separately; this profile focuses on the corporation’s radio and state-audio inheritance. Since Yemen’s civil war fractured state institutions, the former national broadcasting system has been divided across rival zones of control. The Sana’a-based institutional structure and national radio operations are controlled by the Houthi authorities, while several former state or provincial radio assets in government-held areas continue to operate under the internationally recognised government or local authorities. The result is not a coherent nationwide public broadcaster, but a fragmented state-radio system in which stations answer to the authority controlling their territory.

Media assets

Confirmed or visible radio operations: Sana’a Radio / Republic of Yemen Radio from Sana’a; Mukalla Radio; Say’un Radio

Legacy or provincial state-radio network with uneven current status: Al Hudaydah Radio, Ta’izz Radio, Hajjah Radio, Shabwah Radio, Al Mahrah Radio, Sa’dah Radio, Abyan Radio, Lahij Radio, Shabab Radio and other local services historically associated with the national corporation

Context: a divided state and a divided broadcaster

Yemen’s civil war, which escalated in 2014-2015, fractured the country’s institutions, including its state media. The conflict is principally between the internationally recognised government, formerly led by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and since April 2022 represented by the Presidential Leadership Council, and the Houthi movement, Ansar Allah. In the absence of a single central authority, Yemen is governed by parallel administrations, and the state-media inheritance has been divided between them.

The Presidential Leadership Council, chaired by Rashad al-Alimi since 7 April 2022, is the internationally recognised government. It is based in the temporary capital Aden and is backed by Saudi Arabia. During the cycle, the government changed prime minister, with Shaya Mohsen Zindani appointed in January 2026 and a new government formed the following month. The change took place against the backdrop of a severe southern crisis involving the Southern Transitional Council, contested claims about the STC’s status and renewed tensions within the anti-Houthi camp.

The Houthi authorities control Sana’a and much of the densely populated north and west. They govern through a Supreme Political Council under Mahdi al-Mashat, without international recognition. The United States redesignated Ansar Allah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in March 2025, following a January 2025 executive order, while the broader regional confrontation further destabilised the media and security environment.

Ownership and governance

YGCRT’s former unified structure has been split along the conflict’s territorial lines. The Sana’a-based national radio operation and radio services in Houthi-controlled areas operate under the Houthi authorities and the Supreme Political Council, and their output is editorially aligned with the Houthi administration. Sana’a Radio’s current public digital output includes mobilisation, anti-Israel and anti-US messaging consistent with the Houthi political line.

Radio operations in government-held areas, including stations in the south and east such as Mukalla and Say’un, operate under the internationally recognised government or local authorities aligned with it. Their current legal and administrative relationship to the original YGCRT structure is not transparent, but they form part of the divided state-radio inheritance that emerged from the collapse of Yemen’s unified broadcasting system.

In both zones, the relevant stations function as instruments of the controlling authority. Neither side’s operations are governed by an independent structure, and there is no independent regulator or statutory safeguard for editorial autonomy.

Source of funding and budget

YGCRT and the associated state-radio operations do not publish financial statements, and precise figures are unavailable amid the collapse of unified state institutions and Yemen’s severe economic fragmentation, including the split between rival monetary and fiscal authorities.

Each set of operations is sustained by the authority controlling its territory. The northern stations are supported through the Houthi authorities’ control of state institutions, revenues and mobilisation structures. The southern and eastern stations are sustained through the internationally recognised government, local authorities and the limited resources available in government-held areas. Reporting has also described coercive pressures and political interference affecting radio and media workers in Houthi-controlled areas. Both sides operate amid acute humanitarian, institutional and fiscal crisis, and state radio broadcasting has at times been affected by conflict conditions, electricity shortages and resource constraints.

Editorial independence

The state-radio operations associated with YGCRT do not exercise editorial independence. In the north, output is aligned with the Houthi administration and carries war messaging, mobilisation content and political narratives consistent with Houthi authority. In government-held areas, output aligns with the internationally recognised government or local authorities. On both sides, radio remains an important medium because of poverty, displacement, limited internet access in some areas and the continuing importance of audio broadcasting in local communities. This heightens its value to the controlling authorities as a channel for their narratives.

Yemen’s wider media environment remains severely damaged by war, repression and fragmentation. The shutdown, looting or repurposing of outlets, intimidation and detention of journalists, exile of media workers and collapse of independent institutional oversight leave no meaningful accountability mechanism over the corporation’s legacy stations in either zone.

AI and digital policy

SMM found no evidence that YGCRT or the state-radio operations associated with it have published a dedicated public AI governance or editorial-use policy as of mid-2026.

Classification rationale

The Yemen General Corporation for Radio and Television and its associated state-radio inheritance are classified State-Controlled (SC), a classification maintained from prior SMM cycles. Historically, YGCRT was Yemen’s national state broadcasting corporation. In the current fragmented context, its Sana’a-based operations are controlled by the Houthi authorities, while former state-radio assets in government-held areas answer to the internationally recognised government or local authorities.

This division reflects the partition of Yemen’s state-media inheritance rather than a change in type. Across both zones, the relevant radio operations are owned, sustained and editorially directed by governing authorities, with no independent governance, funding or editorial-autonomy safeguard and no regulator capable of protecting them from political control. The corporation and its legacy radio network therefore remain firmly within the SC category for the 2026 cycle.

June 2026