Iraqi TV

["Sean Smyth" <ssmyth@suscom.net>]

In recent nights, we've heard about the bombings in Baghdad affecting the
media elements of Saddam's regime, including state-run television.

The reports have repeatedly mentioned that the country only has two
terrestrial TV "stations," one run by Saddam and one by his son, Uday (also
spelled Odai). According to these same reports, Uday's station is off the
air while Saddam's station is on at reduced power. Now, the country of Iraq
is rather large (300 or so miles from the Kuwait-Iraq border to Baghdad
alone), so I was thinking it was unlikely that only one station could cover
that much ground with anything resembling a standard power allocation and
wondering if these might really be networks. Wouldn't bigger outlying cities
like Basra need at least relays of some sort to transmit the programming to
those peoples?

Of course, I am sure the Iraqis thumb their noses at potential interference
with neighbors' media operations, but is there any signed agreement such as
NARBA specifying frequency allocations on AM and FM for the various nations
in that part of the world?

True radio/TV geek questions, but they're been floating around in my head
for a while ...