March 28, 2019
Podcasting and radio can co-exist in technology era, AMF
ARN says 93% of residents listen to radio channels for news and entertainment
Even as podcasts are becoming popular with substantial demand from the general public, they are not posing a major challenge to radio as a popular medium as claimed by many in the electronic media, said a senior official of Arabian Radio Network (ARN).
Participating in a session titled ‘The Podcast Revolution’ on the second day of the Arab Media Forum (AMF) in Dubai, Mahmoud Al Rasheed, General Manager, Arabian Radio Network (ARN), said as many as 93 per cent of residents in the UAE listen to radio channels for news and entertainment, according to a Nielsen study commissioned by Deloitte. ARN itself has 4.3 million listeners, out of this 93 per cent, which is a huge size, he added.
Radio, as a popular medium, will never die as it will be the only means of communication during crises and there are issues of security, he said.
Al Rasheed was countering a comment by Abdulrahman Abumalih, Founder of Thmanyah, who said radio will cease to exist as podcast is gaining popularity at the cost of radio. Radio is old technology and they have to adopt new technology, or they will die. People want to listen to audio content whenever they want. See how Netflix is replacing TV; YouTube is also doing the same thing.”
Al Rasheed said podcast is not going to replace radio, whereas they are complementary to each other. The reality is that podcasting is only a small version of broadcast as a digital platform. In fact, since starting the service ten years ago, we at ARN (Dubai Eye) have completed a total of 50,000 podcasts today (March 28).
Traditional media, whether it is audio or video, have minimum benchmarks and have intellectual property and copyright protection, whereas podcasting is not necessarily authentic. Studies have found that demand for investing in the podcast business is not “that high.”
Radio as a medium has immense influence over society. Our experience is that our radio channels have brought people of different nationalities together by highlighting our culture.
Abumalih agreed with Al Rasheed that podcasting and radio can complement each other as podcast players can produce content to publish on radio. There is a gradual transformation on the podcast front as new technologies facilitate the production of content for podcasting.
The session was moderated by Hiba Haidari, Anchor, MBC.
