The Arabian Radio Network is launching a new Farsi language radio station in September.
The new station will, it is understood, offer music and talk radio programming in Farsi to a regional audience. It is believed that the Dubai Media City-based broadcaster plans to launch the radio station on or around the 18 September. The new station will be called Radio Shoma and, as well as the traditional airwaves broadcast, the new entity will also be streamed online.
The addition of a new station takes ARN’s current broadcast offering up to eight, including Dubai 92, Hit 96.7 and Al Khaleejia. Its stations already cater to Hindi, Malayalam, Arabic and English-speaking listeners, and the new station will bring a new audience dynamic of Persian speakers.
ARN is headquartered in Dubai and is part of the UAE’s government-owned Arab Media Group. ARN and events agency Done are all that’s left of the group following the decamping of its other media channels, including newspaper Al Bayan, to Dubai Media Inc in late 2009 as part of a major restructuring of the emirate’s government-owned media.
With more than 600 – 800 K speaking Farsi in the UAE … We are all wondering why this radio is launching only in 2011? Is ARN looking for revenue? Would it mean that advertising industry understands the importance of ethnic marketing? Interesting. They will do well…
The reason this radio is just launching now in 2011 is because of the excessive red tape which still exists in the media field in this part of the world. I personally know of numerous parties, some reputable and some maybe not so well known that had been trying desperately for many years to launch such a radio. However as we all know in this part of the world its very difficult do accomplish such a task if you dont have the right ”local partner”.
Huge opportunity for this channel to connect and create dialogue with this influential and important expat target audience living in the UAE. Well done ARN!