Yemen TV

Yemen TV, also known historically as Yemen’s Channel One, is the institutional name now carried by two rival state broadcasters that emerged from the fracturing of Yemen’s once-unified national television. Originally founded in 1975 in North Yemen and historically headquartered in Sana’a as the official state broadcaster, the channel was split by the country’s civil war. Since Houthi forces seized the state television facilities in Sana’a in January 2015, two parallel operations have broadcast under the Yemen TV name and similar national insignia: one run by the internationally recognised government through the Presidential Leadership Council, and one run by the Houthi authorities through their Supreme Political Council. Both remain operational in 2026, broadcasting opposing narratives under the same institutional legacy and each editorially steered by its patron administration.

Media asset

Television and digital: Yemen TV, Presidential Leadership Council version, operating through the internationally recognised government’s satellite, website and digital channels; Yemen TV, Supreme Political Council and Houthi version, operating from Sana’a through satellite and digital and social channels

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 and is backed by Saudi Arabia. It is based in the temporary capital Aden and controls much of Yemen by territory, although the Houthi authorities continue to control Sana’a and much of the densely populated north and west. The Houthi authorities govern through a Supreme Political Council under Mahdi al-Mashat, without international recognition.

The 2025/26 cycle was marked by further political and security disruption in the anti-Houthi camp. A severe southern crisis involving the Southern Transitional Council led to renewed conflict, contested claims about the STC’s dissolution, and action by the Presidential Leadership Council against STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi, whom the council removed from its membership, while the STC’s wider organisational status remained contested. The internationally recognised government also changed prime minister during the cycle, with Shaya Mohsen Zindani appointed in January 2026 and a new government formed the following month. On the Houthi side, 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, including Houthi attacks toward Israel during the 2026 regional war, further destabilised the environment.

Ownership and governance

Both versions of Yemen TV are state broadcasters, each owned and controlled by its respective administration. Houthi forces seized the channel’s original Sana’a facilities in January 2015 and repurposed the station to carry their messaging, operating it under the institutions of the Supreme Political Council and the Houthi-controlled state apparatus. In response, the internationally recognised government established and maintained a parallel Yemen TV under the same name and national branding, broadcasting by satellite and digital channels from government-held and exile-linked locations under the authority of the internationally recognised government and, since 2022, the Presidential Leadership Council.

Each operation is governed and editorially directed by its controlling authority. Neither functions with editorial independence, and there is no independent regulator or statutory safeguard for editorial autonomy on either side of the divide.

Source of funding and budget

Neither version of Yemen TV publishes financial statements, and precise figures are unavailable amid the collapse of unified state institutions and the country’s severe economic fragmentation, including the split between rival monetary and fiscal authorities. Each operation is sustained by its patron administration: the PLC version through the resources and external support networks of the internationally recognised government, and the Sana’a version through the Houthi authorities’ control of northern state institutions, revenues and mobilisation structures. Both operate in an environment of acute humanitarian, institutional and fiscal crisis.

Editorial independence

Neither version of Yemen TV exercises editorial independence. Each functions as the broadcast voice of its controlling authority, carrying that side’s narrative of the war and political developments while excluding or vilifying the rival administration. Coverage on both sides is shaped by factional allegiance rather than professional autonomy.

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, disappearance and exile of media workers, and collapse of independent institutional oversight leave no meaningful space for independent verification or accountability over either Yemen TV operation.

AI and digital policy

SMM found no evidence that either version of Yemen TV has published a dedicated public AI governance or editorial-use policy as of mid-2026.

Both operations distribute content through satellite and digital or social platforms as part of competing information campaigns. The internationally recognised government version operates an official website and live stream, while the Sana’a and Houthi-aligned version maintains active digital and social distribution. However, SMM identified no public framework on either side governing the use of AI in editorial production, verification, attribution, synthetic-media labelling, content disclosure or human editorial oversight. This is consistent with the breakdown of institutional media governance across the country.

Classification rationale

Both versions of Yemen TV are classified State-Controlled (SC), a classification maintained from prior SMM cycles. Each is owned, sustained and editorially directed by a governing authority: the Presidential Leadership Council on the internationally recognised side and the Supreme Political Council and Houthi authorities on the Sana’a side. Neither has an independent governance structure, independent funding, editorial-autonomy safeguards or a regulator capable of protecting it from political control.

The fact that two rival broadcasters operate under the same Yemen TV name reflects the partition of Yemen’s state-media inheritance rather than any divergence in type. Both are direct instruments of their respective administrations, and both remain firmly within the SC category for the 2026 cycle.

June 2026