Afghanistan’s first radio station was established in 1925 during the reign of King Amanullah Khan. Known initially as Radio Kabul, it later went national and was renamed Radio Afghanistan. Closed from 1929 to 1937, it was re-established by the Marconi Company, with outdoor loudspeakers installed in many towns in order to spread the message of the Koran, foster unity and promote education. By the mid 1960s the radio was providing entertainment programming, including music, but all programming was strictly controlled. Broadcasting was carried out through the medium of the national languages of Pashtu and Dari, except during the Soviet times when minority languages were also used. The national television station Television Afghanistan began broadcasting in 1977.

Television has once again become the country's main source of entertainment, though even in Kabul only 25 per cent of families have a television and blackouts are still frequent. Television Afghanistan broadcasts a nightly (four-hour) mix of news, music, sport and movies in both Dari and Pashtu on channel E11 (217.25 MHz vision/222.75 MHz sound). Television in the provinces in Afghanistan was greatly boosted in March 2004 following the completion of a powerful new transmitter in Kabul which broadcasts across the country.

Various foreign radio stations or stations funded from overseas are also relayed to Kabul, including the BBC World Service, Radio France Internationale, the German-run Voice of Freedom, US-funded broadcasts from Radio Free Afghanistan and the Voice of America, and Radio Azadi run by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The government is concerned with this explosion of foreign media and is currently taking steps to regulate broadcasts.