Muslim Television Aḥmadiyya International (MTA) started its transmissions on 31st January 1992, on a weekly basis. It was initially named AMP, or Aḥmadiyya Muslim Presentations, but in November 1992 Ḥaḍrat Khalīfatul Masīḥ IV gave it the name MTA, which stands for Muslim Television Aḥmadiyya.
On 7th January 1994, MTA started its regular daily 12-hour transmissions. Later, on 1st April 1996, MTA began its 24-hour global transmissions and Ḥaḍrat Khalīfatul Masīḥ IV added the word ‘International’ to its name.
On 23rd April 2004, Ḥaḍrat Khalīfatul Masīḥ V inaugurated MTA-2, which primarily caters for Europe.
On 15th July 2006, MTA started transmitting its 24-hour broadcast via internet streaming on its website www.mta.tv.
MTA-3 (Al-‘Arabiyya) was inaugurated by Ḥaḍrat Khalīfatul Masīḥ V on 23rd March 2007, which transmits programmes in Arabic, 24 hours a day.
MTA Africa 1 and MTA Africa 2 channels were inaugurated by Ḥaḍrat Khalīfatul Masīḥ V on 1st August 2016, to cover the African continent. MTA Africa manages a total of 11 studios. A total of 7 languages are catered for across both channels; viz. English, French, Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba, Twi, and English Creole.
On 2nd August 2019 Ḥaḍrat Khalīfatul Masīḥ V inaugurated MTA Smart Tv Apps. With these Apps all MTA channels can be seen on Smart TVs without a satellite dish antenna. Moreover, MTA is also available on IOS and Android platforms.
On 27th May 2020 the regionalisation of the MTA programmes took place and MTA started transmitting 8 MTA channels across the globe.
At present, MTA is managed by the MTA Management Board, which functions under the direct supervision of Ḥaḍrat Khalīfatul Masīḥ.
There are sixteen departments working under this board. Each department is headed by a board director. These departments are as follows:
- Transmission
- Production
- Scheduling
- Translations
- IT
- Programming
- Library
- News
- Satellites
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Legal Affairs
- General Office
- Social Media
- MTA Al-‘Arabiyya
- MTA Africa
Apart from these sixteen departments “Masroor Teleport, MTA International” (USA) also directly works under the management board and is headed by a board director.
Except for a few permanent employees, MTA is mostly run by volunteers. The main aim and object of MTA is to spread the message of Islām as contained in the Holy Qur’ān, the Sunnah, the Aḥādīth of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) and the writings of the Promised Messiah (peace be upon him) worldwide. This is mainly done by transmitting the Friday Sermons, lectures, addresses, question-answer sessions, discussions, and special messages etc. of Ḥaḍrat Khalīfatul Masīḥ. The Jamā‘at scholars and Jamā‘ats all over the world also contribute to these programmes.
