Vatican Media
Vatican Media is the Holy See’s broadcaster, based in Vatican City. It began in 1983 as Centro Televisivo Vaticano, created by Pope John Paul II, and was renamed Vatican Media in 2017. It has been legally connected to Vatican City since November 1996. Its mission is to share Catholicism with the world by producing TV content and showing images of the pope and Vatican activities.
The Vatican does not run its own TV station. Instead, Vatican Media provides images and footage to other television channels and networks. It also helps organize press centers in Vatican City and offers reporters and audio‑video services for foreign outlets. The center conducts about 130 live broadcasts per year, mainly from the Vatican, and covers the pope’s daily activities as well as his travels.
Programming focuses on Vatican life: daily prayers such as the Angelus, Wednesday general audiences, and major celebrations. The pope’s travels around the world are broadcast as well. A weekly 25‑minute magazine program, Octava Dies, has been distributed worldwide since Easter 1998 and is also shown by Italian Catholic channels and agencies. Some content is available in English and Italian on the Vatican website; live broadcasts reach other networks through partners like Telepace, TV2000, EWTN, and KTO. On Sundays, the Angelus is broadcast to the United States via Intelsat.
Vatican Media maintains a large archive—more than 10,000 recordings (about 4,000 hours) from the era starting with Pope John Paul II. The library is open to foreign television channels and documentary producers. The Vatican Media Center operates Monday to Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:35 (CET).