Hezbollah maintains its own television station, Al-Manar (Arabic for "the beacon"), which broadcasts the terrorist group's messages of hate and violence 24 hours a day, seven days a week, reaching much of the Arab world, Europe and South East Asia. Through Al-Manar, Hezbollah directs programming that incites violence, disseminates anti-Semitic and anti-American propaganda and glorifies suicide bombings to millions of viewers worldwide.

The station, which operates out of Beirut, Lebanon, was founded in 1991 and started broadcasting via satellite in May 2000.  It received seed money from Iran and is mostly funded by Hezbollah—itself dependent on Iranian financial backing. It is reportedly also funded through donations collected mainly from Muslim communities outside Lebanon. In 2004, it was estimated to have an annual budget of about $15 million and 300 employees.

Al-Manar's programming director, Sheikh Nasir al-Akhdar, has said that the station's goals are to "wage psychological warfare" and "promote the Islamic resistance." He further explained that "the 'war' with the Zionist enemy continues. This war will persist as long as the Hebrew state exists in occupied Palestine." In 2002, Hassan Fadlallah, Al-Manar's news director at the time and the current Hezbollah representative in the Lebanese parliament, described the station thusly: "Neutrality like that of Al Jazeera is out of the question for us…CNN is the Zionist news network, Al Jazeera is neutral, and Al-Manar takes the side of the Palestinians."

Al-Manar often airs interviews and speeches by Hezbollah leaders that incite violence.  For example, in several addresses aired during a Shia festival in February 2006, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah condemned the publication of cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad by European newspaper. Nasrallah urged European parliaments to "draft laws that ban newspapers from insulting the Prophet" and warned, "Today we are protesting…but we are ready to shed our blood." 

On March 24, 2008, Al-Manar broadcast a speech by Nasrallah to mark the end of the 40-day mourning period for, Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah military commander killed in February. In his speech, Nasrallah stated that "The Zionist entity can be wiped out of existence." He warned of "Zionist-American propaganda" and spoke about the "bloody war of consciousness" in which Israel, helped by some Arabs and Europeans, "infiltrated" the media. Nasrallah also stated: "Mughniyeh will remain the pillar for the resistance in his martyrdom as he was the pillar of the resistance during his life, his jihad, and his work. We…will continue to follow his path."      

In 2003, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Al-Manar aired Ash-Shatat ("The Diaspora"), a 30-part series produced in Syria and based on the anti-Semitic "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Al-Manar also appears to be the source of the conspiracy theory that claimed that 4,000 Israelis were absent from their jobs at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, implying that Israel was in some way behind the attack. In addition to broadcasting the conspiracy, Al-Manar also posted the story on its Web site on September 17, 2001; it was later picked up by extremists around the world.   

The U.S. State Department added Al-Manar to the Terrorism Exclusion List in December 2004. In March 2006, the U.S. Treasury Department added Al-Manar, along with its parent company, the Lebanese Media Group, to its Specially Designated Global Terrorist List, which resulted in economic sanctions and made it illegal for any U.S. persons to engage in financial transactions with Al-Manar.

Several European countries, including France, Spain and the Netherlands, as well as Australia, have also taken measures to block Al-Manar. In March 2005, the broadcasting regulators in the European Union agreed to ban satellite broadcasting of Al-Manar by member countries on the basis that the channel carried racist material and incitement. As a result, by the summer of 2005, several satellite service providers, mostly European, dropped Al-Manar, making it unavailable in North and South America, Asia and Australia. However, it was still available in Europe through Arab satellite companies.

Currently, the Al-Manar signal can be picked up in Europe and the Arab world, including North Africa, by way of two Arab satellite companies—Arabsat, a Saudi-based company founded and run by the Arab League, and Nilesat, which is controlled by the Egyptian government. Starting in April, 2008, Al-Manar has also been carried by a satellite that is operated by the Indonesian telecommunication company Indosat, which makes it available in Indonesia, and reportedly other parts of South East Asia and Australia.