Iraq Radio Live — Free Online Stations

At half past six on the evening of Wednesday 1 July 1936, the announcer Abdul Sattar Fawzi spoke two words that Iraqis would hear for generations: "Huna Baghdad" — "This is Baghdad." Iraq had become the second Arab country, after Egypt, to open an official state radio. Since then, Iraqi radio has announced revolutions, carried the great voices of the Iraqi maqam and, after 2003, exploded into one of the most crowded dials in the region. It is that history you hear when you search for Iraqi radio live or want to listen to Iraqi radio online.

1936: three evenings a week

Before radio, Iraqis followed news and music through Baghdad's newspapers and the Arab press that reached the city. The new station changed that. At first it broadcast only three days a week, but it quickly became the official voice of the state. Its name changed with the country: the Wireless Broadcasting House in the 1940s, the Iraqi Broadcasting House in the 1950s, and after 1958 the Radio of the Iraqi Republic from Baghdad.

14 July 1958: a revolution on the air

On the morning of 14 July 1958, army units moved to take control of Baghdad and overthrow the monarchy. The radio station was one of their first targets, because in those days it was the only way to speak to the whole nation at once. The announcement of the new republic was read on the radio, and for decades afterwards, controlling the broadcasting building in Baghdad was seen as the key to controlling the country.

The sound of Iraq

Baghdad radio did not only carry politics. It recorded and broadcast the Iraqi maqam, one of the most refined vocal traditions of the Arab world, along with folk songs from the south, the rural mawwal and the music of Iraq's Kurdish, Turkmen and Assyrian communities. Iraq was also a pioneer in broadcasting more broadly: it was the first Arab country to launch television, in 1956.

The long years of a single voice

Between 1958 and 2003, Iraqi media lived under military and then one-party rule, and radio was tightly controlled. Many Iraqis tuned in to foreign Arabic services to compare the news, while state radio filled the airwaves with official programmes, patriotic songs and wartime bulletins.

After 2003: dozens of new voices

The change after 2003 was sudden and dramatic. Within about a year, regulators counted some eighty radio stations on the air inside Iraq, alongside new newspapers and television channels. Stations appeared for every community and language: Arabic, Kurdish in its different dialects, Turkmen and Syriac, along with religious, music, youth and talk stations. Radio Shafaq, launched in Baghdad in 2004, became the first non-state station in the capital to broadcast in Kurdish, including the Feyli dialect.

A medium that travels with Iraqis

Today Iraqi radio mixes public broadcasting, private networks and regional stations from Basra to Erbil. Morning shows debate daily life and politics, football commentary draws large audiences, and religious stations play a central role during Muharram and Ramadan. For Iraqis abroad, streaming brings home a familiar voice. Below you can play the Iraqi radio stations online we index, free in your browser.