Parazit (Persian: پارازیت, pārāzit, meaning "static") was a weekly half-hour Persian language satirical television show on Voice of America's Persian service. The show is a satire about Iranian politics. Kambiz Hosseini and Saman Arbabi started the show as a 10-minute show. It was influenced by the American satirical news show The Daily Show. Parazit was started before the June 2009 presidential elections in Iran. It became very popular in Iran. Many people watched it via illegal satellite dishes and internet. Its name comes from the Iranian government's repeated tries to jam foreign satellite programming. Because it is shown through unofficial channels, it is impossible to say how many people have seen it. However since January 2011, the show's YouTube channel is watched 45,000 times a week and its Facebook page is visited 17 million times a month.
