The History of Persian Radio: From Tehran 1940 to Streaming in 2026

Radio Tehran and the birth of Persian broadcasting (1940)

Persian radio broadcasting begins on April 24, 1940, when Radio Tehran (رادیو تهران) went on air with a 20-kilowatt AM transmitter installed just outside the capital. Reza Shah’s government had spent the late 1930s laying the groundwork — importing equipment, training announcers, and choosing a broadcast style modelled loosely on the BBC. The debut broadcast opened with the national anthem and a short address, and immediately became the dominant national medium in a country where newspapers reached only literate urban populations.

Through the 1940s and 1950s, Radio Tehran expanded from a few hours a day to full-day programming: classical Persian music, news bulletins in Farsi, agricultural advice for rural listeners, poetry recitations of Hafez and Sa’di, and religious programming during Ramadan. Regional stations followed in Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashhad, and Shiraz, giving Persian radio a genuinely national footprint by the early 1960s.

The golden age of Iranian music radio (1960s–1970s)

The 1960s and 1970s were the golden age of Iranian pop and classical music radio. State broadcaster NIRT (National Iranian Radio and Television) commissioned original recordings, launched dedicated music channels, and gave national airtime to a generation of artists whose songs still define Farsi music today: Googoosh, Dariush, Ebi, Hayedeh, Delkash, Marzieh, Moein, Vigen, and Aref. If you listen to any Persian Nostalgia channel today, you are largely hearing the catalog that NIRT-era music radio helped canonize.

This period also saw the rise of the “radio play” — long-form Farsi drama serials, often adapting Persian literature or original scripts commissioned for the microphone. For millions of Iranians without access to cinema, the radio play was the default evening entertainment, and it seeded a listening culture that still favors long-form Farsi talk radio over short news clips.

BBC Persian and shortwave in the Cold War

While Radio Tehran dominated domestic listening, the story of Farsi radio in the twentieth century cannot be told without BBC Persian. The BBC Persian Service launched on December 28, 1940 — just eight months after Radio Tehran — broadcasting Farsi news by shortwave from London. During and after World War II, BBC Persian became the reference point for Iranians who wanted an outside perspective on domestic politics, and its reach only grew during the Cold War.

Shortwave was the technology that made this possible. A shortwave transmitter in the UK could bounce a signal off the ionosphere and reach a portable receiver anywhere in Iran, no local infrastructure required. For much of the 1950s through the 1990s, quietly tuning to BBC Persian on a small transistor radio was a shared ritual of Iranian households — a way to hear news that state broadcasters would not air, in the language of home.

BBC Persian discontinued its dedicated shortwave radio service in later years, shifting focus to BBC Persian television and online video. That transition is one reason there is so much modern demand for live Farsi news alternatives such as Radio Farda and Iran International — the audience that grew up on BBC Persian radio still wants an audio-first news source.

1979: Revolution and the reset of state radio

The 1979 Islamic Revolution reset Iranian broadcasting almost overnight. NIRT was reorganized into the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), pre-revolutionary music was pulled from state playlists, and programming reoriented around Farsi religious content, revolutionary news, and reinterpreted classical Persian culture. Many of the singers whose catalogs had filled the 1970s airwaves — Googoosh, Dariush, Ebi, Hayedeh, Marzieh, Moein — left Iran and would eventually anchor the diaspora music scene from Los Angeles.

For listeners inside Iran, the practical impact was a much narrower Farsi radio ecosystem: mostly IRIB channels, plus what could be picked up on shortwave from abroad. For listeners outside Iran, the impact was the opposite — the beginning of a decades-long boom in diaspora Persian radio built by and for the millions of Iranians who now lived in Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, and the Gulf.

The diaspora era: KIRN 670, London Persian Radio, and satellite

Diaspora Persian radio grew fastest in Southern California, home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran. KIRN 670 AM launched in Los Angeles and became the anchor Farsi-language station on the US West Coast — a full-day mix of Persian music, community news, business advertising, and call-in shows in Farsi. For anyone who grew up Iranian-American in the 1990s or 2000s, KIRN was the sound of the car ride home from Persian school.

In the UK, London Persian Radio filled a parallel role, broadcasting Farsi programming for the British Iranian community from London. Smaller community FM stations followed in Toronto, Stockholm, Berlin, and Dubai. Across the same period, satellite radio and satellite TV became the workhorse of long-distance Persian broadcasting — a satellite dish on the balcony was, for years, the fastest way to hear a live Farsi channel from another continent.

Two large-scale news broadcasters defined the modern diaspora news era: Radio Farda, launched by the US Broadcasting Board of Governors to deliver independent Persian-language news, and Iran International, a 24/7 Farsi news channel headquartered in London that became one of the most-discussed Persian broadcasters of the last decade. Both are now more accessible over the internet than on any traditional broadcast frequency.

The internet chapter: streaming, apps, and Icecast

By the mid-2000s, most Iranian and diaspora Persian broadcasters had online streams — usually a Windows Media or an Icecast/Shoutcast URL you had to paste into a desktop player. Farsi radio online worked, but it required knowing which URL to use, which player to install, and which country you were connecting from. This is the era that produced dozens of small “listen to Iranian radio online” portal sites, most of which listed dead stream URLs within a year of launch.

The 2010s added a wave of native Persian radio apps for iPhone and Android. They solved discovery, but introduced their own problems: heavy ad SDKs, mandatory signups, aggressive push notifications, and long App Store review cycles that made it hard to fix a broken stream quickly. Many were abandoned within a few years, leaving listeners back where they started — hunting for a working URL.

2020s: HLS, PWAs, and the return of the browser

The 2020s brought two technical shifts that finally made Persian radio online genuinely reliable. First, HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) replaced older streaming protocols with something that works natively in every modern browser, survives poor mobile networks better, and supports transparent fallback to backup URLs. Second, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) let a website behave like a native app — home-screen icon, background audio, lock-screen controls — without going through the App Store.

The combination collapses the old distinction between “website” and “Farsi radio app.” A single web page can now host thirty curated Persian stations, stream them reliably over HLS, install to the home screen as a native-feeling app, and ship an update to every listener within seconds. FarsiRadio.com is built entirely on this stack: one URL, one player, one codebase, thirty-plus stations, no App Store dependency.

A quick timeline of Persian radio

For a compact reference, here is the arc of Persian radio in a dozen milestones.

Where Persian radio goes next

The next phase of Farsi radio is less about new transmitters and more about new interfaces. Voice assistants like Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomePod already play any Persian station you can cast or AirPlay to them. In-car software is quickly catching up: CarPlay and Android Auto both surface browser-based audio as first-class media sources, which means the “Persian radio in the car” experience is now identical whether you are in Tehran, Toronto, or Tehrangeles.

The deeper trend is fragmentation of listening habits alongside consolidation of infrastructure. Listeners want more choice — a nostalgia channel for weekend mornings, a news channel for the commute, a diaspora station for local Iranian community coverage, a dance channel for the gym — but they want it all through a single interface. That is precisely the shape a modern Persian radio portal has to take, and it is the design brief behind FarsiRadio.com.

What has not changed in eighty-six years is the reason Persian radio exists in the first place. A language, a canon of music, a set of voices — carried through the air, on shortwave, on satellite, and now on HLS — from wherever Iranians live, to wherever Iranians want to listen.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Persian radio start?

Persian radio began on April 24, 1940 with the launch of Radio Tehran, a 20-kilowatt AM transmitter operated by the Iranian state. BBC Persian began Farsi shortwave broadcasts from London later the same year.

What was the golden age of Iranian music radio?

The 1960s and 1970s, under state broadcaster NIRT, are widely considered the golden age. That era’s recordings — Googoosh, Dariush, Ebi, Hayedeh, Marzieh, Moein — still form the backbone of modern Persian Nostalgia radio.

What happened to Iranian radio after the 1979 revolution?

NIRT was reorganized into IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting), pre-revolutionary music was pulled from state playlists, and many musicians emigrated. Diaspora Persian radio grew rapidly in Los Angeles, London, Toronto, and beyond.

Is BBC Persian radio still on the air?

The BBC discontinued its standalone Persian radio service and shifted focus to BBC Persian television and online video. Radio Farda and Iran International are the most-followed modern live Farsi news alternatives.

What is KIRN 670?

KIRN 670 AM is the anchor Persian-language radio station in Los Angeles, serving Southern California’s Iranian community with Farsi music, news, community talk, and business advertising.

How did Persian radio move online?

It happened in three phases: Windows Media / Icecast streams in the 2000s, native Iranian radio apps in the 2010s, and HLS-based Progressive Web Apps in the 2020s that finally made browser Persian radio reliable enough to replace apps.

Where can I listen to Persian radio online today?

FarsiRadio.com is a curated portal of 30+ live Farsi-language stations — news, music, diaspora, and nostalgia — that plays in any modern browser on phone, tablet, desktop, and smart speakers, with no app install required.