BBC Persian Television
| Country | United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | |
| Network | BBC World Service |
| Headquarters | Broadcasting House, London |
| Programming | |
| Language | Persian |
| Picture format | 1080p (16:9 HDTV) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | BBC |
| Sister channels | BBC News |
| History | |
| Launched | 14 January 2009 |
| Links | |
| Website | bbc |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| Oqaab (Afghanistan) | Channel 15 |
| Streaming media | |
| BBC Online | Watch live |
BBC News Persian (Persian: تلویزیون فارسی بیبیسی), formerly BBC Persian Television Televizion-e Fârsi-ye BBC) is the BBC's Persian language news channel that was launched on 14 January 2009. The service is broadcast by satellite and is also available online. It is aimed at the 120 million Persian-speakers (Both native and secondary speakers) in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Persian has one of the fewest native and total speakers in the BBC World Service, with 35 million native speakers (in Iran), 11 million native speakers (in Afghanistan) and 9 and 5 million native speakers in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan respectively. The total native and secondary speakers of Persian is approximately 120 million. This is in contrast with Hindi/Urdu, which has around 1.5 billion native speakers and more than 2 billion total speakers.
Iranian authorities have been known to harass and intimidate family members of the BBC Persian staff. BBC director Mark Thompson said that the staff of BBC Persian had been subject to "increased levels of intimidation alongside disturbing new tactics" by the Iranian government.