Tolo TV

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**Tolo TV**

Type	Satellite television network
Country	Afghanistan
Availability	Afghanistan
Owner	Moby Capital Partners
Key people	Saad Mohseni, director
Launch date	2004
Website www.tolo.tv

Tolo TV (Persian:طلوع"Sunrise") is the name of a television service broadcasted from Kabul, Afghanistan. The service broadcasts news and general entertainment programs. The owner is Saad Mohseni who became an Australian citizen, and has now returned to Kabul. Tolo was launched in October 2004, as the first commercial television station to operate in Afghanistan and is a leading private TV channel in Afghanistan.

Tolo TV was started in 2004 with some hardware costs assistance from USAID. However, no other form of assistance has been provided to Tolo TV since and Tolo TV derives all its income from sale of advertising and production of programming content.

Tolo TV produces and broadcasts AfghanStar, one of Afghanistan's most popular television series. AfghanStar is a similar format to American Idol, and is billed as Afghanistan's biggest talent search. The show has drawn criticism, particularly from Conservatives and security has been increased around the contestants on the show^[1]. Other popular programs include talk show Tea with Azizyar, Maheman Yar

Recently one of the station's female VJs, Shiama Reziaee was murdered, after receiving threats for her un-Islamic behavior. In November 2007, the channel received warnings from Muslim clerics and the Culture Ministry for broadcasting a concert of singer Shakira.