SuroyoTV celebrates 16th anniversary of first experimental broadcast

ZALIN (QAMISHLI), Syria – Sixteen years have passed since SuroyoTV launched its first experimental broadcast on 4 July 2004 on Hotbird satellite. At the beginning, the station only broadcast for an hour a day. On 10 October 2004 SuroyoTV held its official opening gala, live, and started airing daily, weekdays two hours every evening and in the weekends four hours. Eventually, the station would be broadcasting 24-hours a day.

In 2012 SuroyoTV Music was added as an extra channel and broadcasts music in Western and Eastern Syriac, two variants of Aramaic. And in 2020 radio station Suroyo FM was opened in Zalin (Qamishli) broadcasting in the Gozarto Region in Syria (al-Jazeera province) and has some coverage in the adjacent Tur Abdin Region (Mardin province in Turkey).

From start, the programming included various subjects in the Eastern and Western forms of the Syriac language, including cultural, social, political, and religious programs. The channel would go on to become an educational and cultural center for the Syriac people (Chaldeans-Arameans-Assyrians) in the homeland and around the world. One of the goals was to raise the level of knowledge of especially the younger Syriac generations in the diaspora of Syriac history and culture.

The missions of SuroyoTV are to unite Syriacs irrespective of their geography, church affiliation, and SuroyoTV does not discriminate between the Aramean, Assyrian, Chaldean, Maronite, Melkite denominations. SuroyoTV has also set itself to serve democratization and disseminate values of democracy, freedom and equality whereby it attempts to act as a bridge between the Middle East and the Western world.

During the past 16 years, SuroyoTV has been keen to transmit all local and breaking news focusing on the Syriacs spread across over 40 countries. SuroyoTV has news teams and TV-production teams in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany and the U.S.

The channel now operates as an IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) channel available to anyone with an internet connection.