1 channels
Mauritanian television is a rare bird: a single national broadcaster in an era of channel-surfing abundance. The country’s entire terrestrial TV landscape is occupied by the state-run service, which broadcasts in Arabic (with some French programming for news and cultural shows). There are no commercial competitors, no regional splinter channels, just one generalist feed reaching a mostly satellite-equipped audience. That means every broadcast decision, from the timing of the evening news to the choice of Friday sermon coverage, is essentially a national curation. Primetime starts early, around 19:00, with a long news bulletin that often runs a full hour, heavy on government statements and diplomatic visits. After that, programming shifts to religious lectures, serialized dramas (often imported from Egypt or Syria and dubbed into Arabic), and occasional local cultural performances like traditional music or poetry recitations. The lack of choice has actually fostered a specific viewing habit: families gather around the single TV set, and the remote is rarely touched. Satellite dishes, ubiquitous even in rural areas, offer a window to Al Jazeera, MBC, and other pan-Arab channels, but the state channel remains the default for domestic affairs. There's no dubbing versus subtitles debate, everything is in Arabic or French, and subtitles are rare. The broadcaster also carries key live events: presidential addresses, Friday prayers from the capital’s main mosque, and national holiday parades. For a country with just one TV channel, the sense of shared experience is unusually strong.