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Al-Monitor – The London-based Persian television network Manoto announced in a surprise statement on Monday that it will terminate operations in Iran in about two months due to financial circumstances.
The statement cited its shrinking ad revenue, yet suggested that it could be back on air if it acquired new sponsors.
In its 14-year history, the news channel has also earned popularity among Iranians for its exclusive archive videos, documentaries and diverse entertainment shows. It has formed a close bond with viewers, giving significant air time to ordinary Iranians and broadcasting their user-generated footage that mostly reflect their grievances with the Iranian establishment.
In recent years, Manoto had turned increasingly critical of the Islamic Republic. Its coverage of protests in 2017 and 2019 drew the ire of officials in Tehran, who accuse it of seeking regime change. The rage was further intensified by Manoto’s focus on last year’s unrest after the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police.
Iran’s state media celebrated the news of Manoto’s closure. The ultraconservative daily Kayhan, which is controlled by the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed that the channel had been funded by the Israeli government and that the war on Gaza no longer left room to support Manoto. “The ripple effects of the Gaza war have made orphans out of the Iranian opposition,” the paper wrote in mockery.
Kayhan did not present evidence of that claim, but the channel’s financial resources have been subject to speculation for years. While the owners deny any links to foreign governments and opposition groups, they have faced accusations of promoting monarchist groups that envision a state headed by Reza Pahlavi, whose father was deposed in the 1979 revolution.
Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, cited a defecting former “founder” of the channel as saying that Manoto’s finances originated from the Pentagon to trigger regime change in Iran.
The Iranian state broadcaster’s official website took a different line, speculating that Manoto’s sponsors, “the UK government and the Pahlavi family,” had found it incompetent in bringing about the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Tehran has in the past 15 years grown intolerant of expatriate Persian outlets critical of its rights record, demonizing them as “hostile” media and criminalizing any contact between Iranian citizens and those news networks.
Iranian authorities have specifically gone after journalists with BBC Persian, pressuring their family members at home and even confiscating their properties in some cases.
The crackdown has been even more ferocious in the case of London-based Iran International TV, particularly in the wake of last year’s unrest. Iran International’s round-the-clock coverage of the protests prompted Tehran to designate the channel as a “terrorist” entity based on claims that it instigated violence in the country.
Iran International suspended operations in London for several months and relocated to its Washington bureau, citing British police findings that its staff and journalists were facing serious security threats from the Islamic Republic’s operatives in London.
