Posted on 06/22/2003 8:33:29 AM PDT by freedom44
June 21 — News travels fast between Tehran and Los Angeles. Last Wednesday, during student protests at Tehran University, satellite-TV talk-show host Shahram Homayoun was chatting on the air at Channel One TV in L.A. when a caller from Iran broke in with important news. Students were massing in Amirabad Street, the caller reported excitedly. “They are shouting ‘Freedom! Justice!’ she said. Then she shoved the phone out the window so Hamayoun could hear for himself. The calm Homayoun instantly became animated, exhorting his unseen viewers half a world away. “If you need freedom, now is the time,” he urged, waving his arms. When another caller from Tehran got on the air, Hamayoun cut him off. “Why are you calling me?” he asked. “Hang up, and go join the students!”
HOMAYOUN’S CHANNEL ONE is one of a half dozen L.A. satellite TV stations beaming signals of political unrest into Iran. Many offer a combination of entertainment, politics and news, but several have set out specifically to assist Iranian protesters and dissidents in their efforts to bring political change to the Islamic theocracy. The stations began springing up four years ago, as illegal satellite dishes sprouted on the roofs of homes in Tehran, Shiraz and the rest of the country. In the past few weeks, the Iranian government has sent microwave trucks into the streets to jam the signals, and officials renewed denunciations of the U.S.-based stations. Blaming the American satellite personalities as “sons of members of SAVAK [the secret police under the shah’s rule] … and of counterrevolutionaries,” former president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani warned last week: “Be careful not to be trapped by the evil television stations that America has established.” The hard-line clergy blamed everything on the stations. “The student demonstrations have been provoked by the foreign-based satellite programs,” railed the Ayatollah Ali Khameini.
Despite the low production values, viewers send money. Grateful fans worldwide stuff cash into envelopes bound for the stations. During a NEWSWEEK visit to Channel One last winter, Homayoun dumped the contents of a box on his desk. Out spilled a dozen envelopes with cash. Several contained just a few dollars. One fan from Scandinavia mailed 1,000 euros—in cash. Pound notes and Iranian rials show up, too.
Much of the support comes locally, from Southern California’s 500,000 Iranian-Americans. Spread between the San Fernando Valley and West Los Angeles, as well as south to Orange County and San Diego, the Cal-Iranians are vocally and angrily opposed to the Islamic rule that emerged after the shah fell in 1979. Everyone wants the government toppled; disagreement begins when the conversation turns to what should replace the mullahs. Some are royalists, aching for the return of the shah’s son, who lives outside Washington, D.C. Some want democracy. In American politics, older Iranians tend to be Republicans, in part for reasons of class and income but also because they still blame Jimmy Carter’s party for abandoning Iran.
How many Iranians actually watch isn’t at all clear. Satellite Nielsen ratings don’t exist, so station owners are able to fantasize all they want. Like several of the other broadcasters, Atabay has no real idea how many people inside Iran watch his channel, but he thinks big. “There are at least 5 million satellite dishes, and probably eight people (watch) from each dish,” he volunteered in an interview last winter. “So maybe 30 million viewers.” No doubt that’s a vast exaggeration, but whatever the actual size of the audience, the mullahs plainly wish it were a whole lot smaller.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
Iranians have satellite dishes, Cubans don't.
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