Telewebion viewership statistics for series broadcast on television in the first half of autumn 1404 (2025/26) show that IRIB's old and rerun series have, by a wide margin, more viewers than its new series.
The Special A series "Prophet Yusuf," whose first episode aired in Dey (December–January) 1387 (2008/09), was again this year the most-watched series in this period, recording 4.37 million views on Telewebion; that is, it has held on to its popularity and audience after 17 years! This may indicate yet another failure for IRIB's new series.
The most-viewed new (original) IRIB series, "Algorithm," has had about 2.6 million views, and other new series such as "Pesaran-e Hur" and "Royaye Reyhaneh" have had only a few hundred thousand views.
In the long-term popularity and success of "Prophet Yusuf," besides production quality, factors such as the power of nostalgia are also involved, because the late Farajollah Salahshoor's work has now become part of Iranians' collective memory. But the high viewing figures for this series expose the weak performance of IRIB's new series.
In your view, what other factors are involved in IRIB audiences' embrace of reruns of popular old series?
See the original infographic (Persian)
Machine-translated from Persian by Namafar; the Persian original is authoritative. Read the original in Persian