The departure of Hiyam Al-Tabbaa, the first woman to present programs on Syrian TV
She was buried in Damascus on Saturday afternoon at the age of 88, the media figure, Hiyam Al-Tabbaa, who is considered one of the founders of Syrian television, as she was the first woman to appear on its screen in the early sixties of the twentieth century.
On Friday night, the Ministry of Information mourned the departure of al-Tabbaa, the “beautiful time announcer” and presenter of the “Children’s Club” program, which was shown in black and white when television broadcasts began in Syria in 1960, and was widely popular.
Al-Tabbaa's health deteriorated years ago, and she was placed in a nursing home in Damascus, and she passed away there.
Al-Tabbaa, born in 1934, comes from a Damascene family. She graduated from the Department of History at Damascus University, and then joined directly the team that helped found Syrian TV in 1960. She was among the first to watch it on viewers alongside the generation of pioneers such as Duraid Lahham, Sabah Qabbani, Khaldoun Al-Maleh and Sami Jano. and others.
Al-Tabbaa also participated in preparing and presenting news bulletins, and was the first female news anchor on Syrian TV, according to what she said before her death in a press interview.
In an interview with Al-Watan newspaper in 2016, she said, "I used to present news bulletins...at least once a week. I presented them alone and sometimes...with the participation of another colleague."
The official TV presenter, Raeda Waqf, described the late media as “the flower of the beautiful time” and wrote on her Facebook page, “Beautiful Time announcer and founder of the first and most famous children’s program.. She was able to be one of the first and unique at the time of the founding of Syrian Arab TV.”
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