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JRFC Talents Gallery

2009-11-15T19:17:00.001+02:00

The Jordanian Romanian Forum for Culture invites you to its “Talent's Gallery”. Opening this coming Wednesday, the 18th at 6 PM in Mecca Mall – New Extension, at the Ground Floor. The gallery will continue on Thursday and Friday,the 19th and 20th.

Va invita Forumul Cultural Iordaniano Roman la "Galeria De Talente". Deschiderea va fii Mercuri 18 noiembre la ora 18.00 la Mecca Mall - Etaj Parter. Galeria va continua joi si vineri 19 si 20.

يدعوكم المنتدى الأردني الروماني للثقافة لحضور "جاليري المواهب". و الذي سيفتتح يوم الأربعاء 18 نوفمبر \ تشرين الثاني - الساعة السادسة مساءً، و يستمر طيلة أيام الخميس و الجمعة ، 19 و 20 نوفمبر. و ذلك في مكة مول – التوسعة – الطابق الأرضي.

Radio Guide Update: Sawt Al-Madina on 93.3 FM in Irbid

2009-10-28T10:22:00.001+03:00

Sawt Al-Madina started its test transmission in the nothern town of Irbid, on 93.3 FM for over a week now.

this is the 1st frequency for Sawt Al-Madina outside Amman, despite the fact that its transmission from the Ammani wave covers several towns around the capital.

RDS on Radio Jordan's stations

2009-09-07T13:25:00.000+03:00

Radio Jordan Broadcasting Corporation has lunched by the end of August RDS service on several of its working radio services' frequencies on the FM waves.

Those who tune in to 90.0 FM and 106.7 FM in the greater Amman area can now have “Radio Jordan Main Program” appearing on their RDS radio screen, while those who tune in to 96.3 FM will have the statement “Radio Jordan Foreign Program” appearing on their radio screen.

The other radio stations that belong to Radio Jordan Broadcasting do not have RDS yet, nor was i certain about whether other working frequencies outside Amman for the 2 stations mentioned above have RDS working, or if they support RDS-AF (RDS Auto Frequency switching when you get out of a frequency's range and enter another one's range).

Radio Jordan might have been trying to evolve in the past couple of years, and i have discussed this several times on my blog in several occasions, and here is another step forward. As Radio Jordan's stations were almost the only ones that do not have RDS running.

Now technically speaking, Radio Jordan is still, despite the big possibilities the corporation holds, by the end of the list among Jordanian radio stations, mainly because of managerial issues. For example, several frequencies still suffer from Bad sound quality, while all the problem might be in setting an equalizer properly, Radio Jordan Foreign Service on 96.3 FM is a simple example (You can just observe the base's noise by the moment you switch to it), or a problem in the output cables like the same station's frequencies in Ajloun on 90.9 FM which still suffers from the same problem for several years now with its low echoish sound level problem. Or by not restricting the usage of low quality tracks , despite the availability of high quality originals, a problem mostly notable on the Main Program's Service. Or the simple unnecessary duplicity of service, which highers the costs, just like having 2 FM Frequencies for the main service covering the capital (90.0 and 106.7 FM) , and same for Amman FM (99.0 and 88.0 FM), while there are other areas that are not covered by transmission, or having null transmission, like irbid's local frequency on 95.4 FM.

Big evolutions were made in programming, mainly on The Main Service and Amman FM. And great efforts have been made on the role of the foreign service, but we still have some radio announcers performing on national radio's airwaves like if they are dealing with their car sound system! For example, Yes, we still hear Arabic music on the Foreign service.

The big problem is that all those issues are really minor issues for such a big corporation that can be handled and solved easily. But without them, Radio Jordan will not be able to go the next step in attracting back the trust of the people.

Maybe a proper example from my personal experience is Radio Romania, which is now very competitive in a very jammed market like the Romanian market, but is still having its weight by coverage 1st of all (covering the entire country with a wide range of FM frequencies with high transmission and sound quality along with RDS-AF), programming (Mainly news along with shows targeted for the nation and hot-AC quality Music, both Romanian and western), and appearance (Branding, events ... etc), along with a range of subsidiary local and nation-wide radio stations, among which some unique ones like Radio Romania Cultural, and Itsy-Bitsy FM (a children oriented radio station with very high ratings and listenership).

Spin Jordan, 1 Year of evolution in Jordan's CHR Radio

2009-09-01T10:51:00.001+03:00

Today marks one year exactly since SPIN Jordan when on the Ammani airwaves on 94.1 FM , and at the same time, ever from the 1st day, in Irbid in the north and Ma'an in the south.

Ever since startup, Spin Jordan started with 3 frequencies, followed by a forth in Aqaba lately, being by that the only CHR Radio that dared to get out of the capital's borders. and gave a big hit in both irbid and aqaba.

Spin also started with a rich grid of shows less than 1 month since startup! something that other station spent YEARS to achieve, and some didnt yet though the have been on air over a year and a half and are still satisfied with 1 show that goes on vacations even. and this grid of shows didnt stop there, but went over richer during this year to have specialized music shows as well.

Talking about Music, Spin flipped over Jordanian CHR Radios playlists, and even played a role in having some bands being played for the 1st time on jordanian radios (Hint Hint: Kings of leon, The Script, and others). and we finally got to hear alternative hits and non-commercial hits played on the radio!

While when it comes to production, SPIN had a remarkable role in getting the radio quality standards in Jordan higher ... from basic concepts like "no moments of silence allowed on the airwaves" and "no talking over songs", to high quality productions and jingles ... as well as talking arabic on the airwaves of a CHR Radio, a big step forward, and one that never took place on jordanian CHR radios, from jingles like (دايماً الهتس أحلى عـ سبن) to ads in the streets and media, to actual talking on the radio.

Happy Anniversary Spin! we might have waited quite a while for you to come over on our airwaves, but this waiting worth it :)

Intercity Public Transportation in mess

2009-08-30T10:05:00.000+03:00

Been a while since i have blogged about public transportation in jordan, and since i've blogged in general due to the fact that i was pretty busy lately, as well as out of the country.

Intercity public transportation has been in a mess lately across jordan, and i am not claiming it was perfect, but at least it was doing the job.

During this summer, things seemed to be going towards a mess in the sector due to several facts. and some of the solutions were causing problems in other parts of the sector, and so on.

Probably this mess was quite an effect on the public due to the fact that it happened on major lines connecting the capital Amman with the major jordanian cities around it. along with the general usual mess that occurred after petrol prices went high again, leaving the PTRC un-handling the case properly like before and causing a mess among the sector's operators and users.

Users of Major lines connecting the capital Amman to Irbid, Salt and Zarqa have been suffering lately. It all started when Irbid-Amman's big buses started a strike by the end of last june along with a strike for the Amman-Irbid white cabs asking for their fairs to be increased after the raise in gasoline prices.
The Big Buses drivers and owners had this strike for the 4th or 5th time, asking again & again to have their operations combined with the small coaster buses, which are, despite being individually owned, operating under a single-owned phantom line operator called "3aroos el Shamal Transport", a company that doesn't own a single bus! More about the coaster/big bus battle can be found here. The strike continued till several days before ramadan, after no solution was found by the PTRC.

On the other hand, 2 other Major lines, Zarqa-UJ-Sweileh and Salt-Raghadan, which are also licensed to big companies that, probably own buses, but sub-contract the operation to individuals driving them, without the needs to care about their maintenance and quality of operation [details available in this response of mine], have been facing trouble after most of their buses are not even willing to start and run any more. this forced the PTRC to find substitutes for operation on those 2 hot lines that work almost 24/7. and from where could those substitutes be but from other lines! on Salt-Raghadan line for example substitutes were some big Irbid-Amman buses (yup, those on strike, but only with a Wasta!), and big Jerash-Amman buses leaving the small town of jerash almost disconnected from the capital with only 2 small buses operating on this line!

While on the other hand, on the Zarqa line, the substitute were buses from the CMTC, which still has some of its lines in the capital Amman badly operated!

Anyway, the transportation between zarqa and Amman was enhanced, or tried to be, by a 60 years old 20km/h running train, operating during ramadan twice a day, by a trip from Zarqa towards Amman at 7.30 AM in the morning and a trip back at 3.30 PM. a nice idea after the death of the Amman-Zarqa light railway project, esp that as declared that the train carts are rehabilitated and air conditioned even. but unfortunately, the announcements of this service didnt exceed some short press releases in the newspapers, resulting in only 6 passengers at its 1st day of operation.

Radio Guide Update: Amen FM on 101.7 FM in Ma'an

2009-08-23T17:41:00.002+03:00

Amen FM, the police dept radio station started broadcasting in Ma'an and Ras Al-Naqab area lately on 101.7 FM.

By this Amen FM is now covering most of the kingdom in 4 FM airwaves across the country

Radio Guide Update: Ayyam FM on 93.5 FM in Aqaba

2009-07-11T14:32:00.002+03:00

Ayyam FM has also started its frequency in Aqaba Special Economic Zone on 93.5 FM.

Ayyam FM started broadcasting in aqaba with its sister communicorp radio station, Spin, earlier last week.

Radio Guide Update: Spin Jordan on 103.5 FM in Aqaba

2009-07-09T10:12:00.004+03:00

Spin Jordan started broadcasting on 103.5 FM in the Jordanian sea port city of Aqaba and its surrounding areas.

Spin Jordan is currently the only english speaking jordanian radio station with 4 frequencies around the kingdom, after starting less than 1 year ago with 3 frequencies in Amman , Irbid and Maan. and is one of the very few with a frequency in Aqaba, where the only non state radio stations running there are Fann FM and Amen FM.

Radio Guide Update: Virgin Radio Jordan on 93.7 FM ... soon!

2009-06-28T09:35:00.002+03:00

Yes, its finally official.

The station broadcasting on 93.7 FM in the Amman Greater Area is Virgin Radio Jordan.

After over 2 years of random music broadcasting without a station title on 93.7 FM but a random RDS name that goes by the name of "Nojoum FM".

and after witnessing a store in City Mall that now is almost finished but not equipped yet, and is obviously nothing but the station's studio [studio in the mall, how cool is that :) ]

Virgin Radio Jordan seems to be lunching just around the corner as , i expect, a CHR radio of another kind, one that would play both arabic and western contemporary hits! this is what i can see from what they are playing on 93.7 FM at the moment.

More soon! Hopefully!

UPDATE: No signal is available any more on 93.7 FM

UPDATE 08-Sep-2009: The test transmission has returned on 93.7 FM

My Radio Segment, Episode 15

2009-06-24T08:46:00.000+03:00

Sorry for being away for awhile, since i was busy over my heads as well as out of the country.

But for those who follow my radio segment episodes through my blog, Season 1 of my radio segments was wrapped up by mid-May, and here goes episode 15 which was aired on the 27th of April. and will be followed by the May Episode number 16, which was the last one of this season.

This episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

The 15th episode of my radio segment mainly discussed Comedy Radio Shows on the Jordanian airwaves. As there are several radio shows of this genre being aired on the Jordanian radio stations on daily or weekly basis, as well as other shows that are making appearance on the airwaves in specific times of the year, like the holy month of Ramadan.

The 1st to be mentioned out of those , is definitely the most popular “Nakshet Mo5”, and the one Nadeem Sarraj got famous from as a radio comedian, on Mazaj FM. The show is mainly a comedian phone pranks show. And is still broadcasted on Mazaj FM as a “Best Of ..” , although Nadeem Sarraj became part of radio Ayyam FM.
Mazaj FM has also two other comedy shows of different nature and are more considered to be monologue comedy, the first is a social pamphlet by the Egyptian comedy artist yousef Ma'atee and is called “Maatee Show”, which is not produced by Mazaj FM but Mazaj has its broadcasting rights in Jordan, while the other is produced by Mazaj FM and is political comedy monologue by the Jordanian artist Nabil Sawalha and is called "Nashret Ghaseel".

On Ayyam FM, Nadeem Sarraj came back with a new comedy radio show called "Etla3 Men Rasee" and a new different personality for phone pranks, the thing that Nadeem knows the best in Radio Comedy, and which no one would compete with him except for Mohamed Al-Madfa3ee's show on Radio Fann during Ramadan "Osman fee Ramadan.

Finally on Radio Al-Balad, a different comedy show started in the new programs cycle that goes by the name “Bella 3alek”, and is mainly oriented towards discussing the ironic matters of life and people. Unlike other programs, the show involves more than one person playing different roles in it, and includes a lot of music and sound effects. But the program is considered to be kind of long! Reaching 25 - 30 minutes. It might have been better if it was more focused and shorter, and more comic and popular even!

Reviewing the Jordanian airwaves during Mid April, when this episode was aired, we start from thursday April 16th, when a Jordanian radio station had its airwaves lock down along with over 25 radio stations from all around the world to broadcast live probably the most famous and listened to radio show on planet earth, that is, as Beat FM listeners had the chance to join over 300 million listener to listen to Episode 400 of “A state of Trance” , the show wasn't by then broadcasted on the Jordanian airwaves, but was rather a notice that Beat FM will start broadcasting “A state of Trance” on weekly basis, which it did several weeks later.

Also on Beat FM, a new drive back show had started by the name of “The Drive”, occupying this prime time period on the airwaves of Beat FM.

While on the other hand, Play 99.6 also have a new show (you can feel the concurrency in the air), but this time its not a drive back show as Play already has one, its an evening show, or period, in which a DJ plays music in the 8 – 10 PM period, and takes the people's request for their favorite songs, the thing is that , and for the 1st time on Play's airwaves, this DJ speaks Arabic! We are mentioning that Arabic is getting more and more on the airwaves of Jordanaian CHR radio stations which play western music. One big example is SPIN where all its DJs speak Arabic along with English on the airwaves. While here on Play, this DJ speaks only in Arabic, which maybe annoying for some of the station listeners, but Play indeed knows what its doing by this, as this will attract more listeners who do not usually listen to CHR and western radio stations on the Jordanian airwaves. As well as the fact that this period is one in which young people listen more to radio, and thus, a wide range of new listeners for the station.

Taxi Al-Momayaz .. not so Momayaz!?

2009-05-24T11:32:00.002+03:00

Been a while since i did some public transportation blogging , ha!? Don't worry .. still here, monitoring :)

In the last several months or so, we had witnessed some Kuwaiti investments in the public transportation sector, that were unfortunately rapidly hit by the global economic crisis as others. 1st was the Amman-Zarqa light railway project , that until now, not just only didn't get to see light, but is still in a “tendering mode!” , that is after the 1st investor (Pakistani – Chinese – Jordanian alliance of a constructor contractor , steel manufacturer and real estate office respectively ) was rejected after it exceeded the time limit of assuring the needed money twice. The 2nd company taking over this BOT project was a strong Kuwaiti – Spanish alliance that applied their strength in rising up the projects expenses, but also failed twice in assuring the needed money, and thus the project was withdrawn from it by the government, resulting in having a case raised up in an international court, where the government is currently paying this alliance back!

Anyway, On the other hand, the Kuwaitis came up taking a license last year for Al-Momayaz Taxi, to be a quality taxi service with high standards, availability, on demand service, and quality. Especially after the PTRC's failure and what was to be called “The beige taxi” few years back, which happened to be nothing more or less than the yellow ones, and are still roaming our streets just like the yellow cabs.

So, the crisis came, and the modifications started in Al-Momayaz tender! 1st from the time of starting (which was a couple of months late), to the number of cars to start with (the actual start was less than 50 cabs), the type of cars (From 200 Toyota Camrys and 200 Mercedes E200 to 300 Toyota Corollas and 100 Mercedes E200), until the changes in tariffs and making the Mercedes tariff start from 1 JD, though gas prices were much higher and time of contracting!

Anyway, Me personally, as a seeker for quality, didnt have any problem getting into a silver colored Corolla, just like other Corolla cabs roaming around the Jordanian streets and paying extra money just for the sake of quality, quality to be represented with several added value services starting from polite and well trained drivers, with no “sorry that's not my way” excuses, to GPS tracking for the cars, requesting cabs by phone (also assisted by the GPS tracking system to let operators choose the closest car to your location), specified tariffs regardless of the time or destination, and even electronic payment.

When things come to the ground, you can obviously find that those from Al-Momayaz Taxi care about the image, the cars are always clean and tidy from inside and outside as well as their drivers, who are well selected and are professional as well as polite ones. Momayaz Taxi are also making sure to have stationaries at several luxurious hotels and commercial centers around town. But , is that all that is needed by such a service !?

Well, when it comes to the riding experience, Al-Momayaz taxi has new kinds of taxi counters (still not as supposed to be and not up to European standards), but good enough to be clear and give you a receipt with your trip details. And you'd pay just as the counter says, with no extra amounts of money for certain areas like yellow cabs would sometimes do when you tell them you want to go to a place they don't prefer. And al-momayaz drivers accept to stop and wait for you to drop by a shop or something during the trip without any problems, much not like the yellow cab drivers. But when it comes to late night hours (after midnight mainly), several experiences showed up that we still do have the after midnight problem of not sticking to the counter even in the Al-Momayaz Taxi! Either by having the driver telling you short and to the point that this would cost you an X amount of money without running the counter, or even pretending that they forgot to run the counter or close it “By mistake” during the trip!

Now the amount of money asked by them after midnight can be even less than yellow cabs at this time of the night, and pretty equal to how much the counter would count, the only difference is that the driver would get the money for his own pocket, and not for the company's.... when asking the drivers why would they do that, they all answer the same complaining from the Kuwaiti company's administration and their low wages (which is 250 JDs plus commissions by the way). Not that much for a driver who has been driving for at least 3-4 years! And what kind of QOS would come when you give your employees such low wages! It would have been more convenient for the Kuwaitis to give more wages for their drivers than having ads on small dirty and unclear ads boards on the middle of the road!

Last but not least, when it comes to phone requesting the cab, the call center is simply rubbish! I've never, ever been answered until now by the customer service operators! It simply keeps ringing and ringing with no answer even in day time. Now the call center is divided into both, an automated taxi request (which weirdly is not always active !! as sometimes the phone just starts ringing at the operator after you hear a voice that the call is recorded for quality measurement), and a vocal one that keeps ringing with no answer as mentioned earlier. As for the automated request, the menu is kind of boring, with some nonsense questions like (press 1 to have a home taxi request or 2 for an office taxi request). And the fact that the automated request prevents you from specifying a time that is less than 30 mins ahead from your call.

Last but not least, i observed that request operators speak with the drivers regarding the requests through the phone (the tracking device is over GSM and has a phone as well), using a headset, and once i even noticed that the operator has assigned a request to the taxi i was riding with despite the taxi was occupied with my order. The driver was telling the operator that he didn't receive the request and that he is occupied already, a very meaningful conversation that showed up that the tracking system they are using is not that of a magnificent one as it didn't show the taxi was occupied for the operator, nor sent the request correctly.

Taxi Al-Momayaz is a good service to have, but it can be much more better even!

My Radio Segment, Episodes 13 & 14

2009-04-20T13:17:00.000+03:00

I'm merging both the 13th [ available for download HERE ] & 14th [available for download HERE] episodes together in this report, broadcasted on the 6th and 13th of April respectively, due to the fact that one of them has follow up information for the other. The 14th episode have extra information only about Radio Al-Balad's new programs grid and its details.

Today i have no segment, and i shall be back on the airwaves next week with more news and subjects.

Started the 12th episode with a follow-up for the subject of episode before, with regards to planning the radio frequencies with neighboring countries, that is, as i discussed this subject over a telephone interview with the chief of TRC, Dr. Ahmed Hyasat, who explained the role of the TRC in organizing the coverage of Jordanian Radio stations' frequencies and their coverage, as well as insuring they wouldn't intersect with radio stations from neighboring countries, especially in border areas. In addition to conducting periodic coordination meetings with authorities in neighboring countries to regulate the frequencies and ensure that no interference would be caused neither by Jordanian or foreign radio stations, in addition to having direct communications channels with them in case of having coverage violations, especially violations that exceed border areas in the depth of Jordanian territories.
Dr Hyasat also stated in the interview that both radio stations as well as listeners themselves have a role in detecting such violations and reporting them to the TRC that would care to investigate and make necessary actions for the reported cases.

In my weekly review of the airwaves, I start from Irbid FM, Radio Jordan's local radio station broadcasting on 95.4 FM in irbid area, which has been stopped during this week and without any prior notice or declared reason, and whether this stop is permanent or temporary; how ever, recent news from Radio Jordan Broadcasting stated that this is a temporary stop, as the station will be facing some restructuring in both its employees and programs. Irbid FM is the only local radio station with specific programs targeting residents of the area its covering, and this radio station which started around 16 years ago on 103 FM in irbid area during specific hours on the same frequency of Radio Jordan Broadcasting – Main Service, has reached 7 hours of local broadcasting lately, while the remaining hours Radio Amman FM was broadcasting on this frequency.

Also, the radio station broadcasting on 93.7 FM in Amman, which i mentioned in an earlier episode that its still untitled (except for the RDS name “Nojoum FM”) and whose broadcasting is limited to broadcasting non stop Arabic song for over a year now. We started hearing some changes on it airwaves during this week, as its transmission stopped several times and we now can hear both Arabic and Western music on its airwaves, the station is also no longer entitled as Nojoum FM. This may signify the beginning of an actual beginning for the station soon.

On the other hand, a new station started its broadcasting on 94.9 FM covering the region of Amman, the station was still untitled at the time of preparing and broadcasting the 13th episode, but the week after i followed up and figured out this is the test transmission for Jordan University Radio. The station shall officially start its programs by the end of the month.

While in Karak, Mutah University's Radio station, Sawt Al-Karak, started its test broadcasting on 91.3 FM covering Karak area. The station shall officially start its programs soon as well during next may. Being a community radio serving the local area and community.

Moving further to reviewing what was on the running stations airwaves, i start from Friday 3-4-2009, in which, as the friday before and each and every friday, Radio Sawt Al-Madina was pretty busy with its special program and live transmission from one of Amman's cafes to follow and promote for the Jordanian participants in the reality TV & musical program “Star Academy”, with a lot of people on location, and even some of the program's stars from previous years, Sawt Al-Madina made a unique action for this program and among its fans and followers in jordan.

While on Beat FM, the Jordanian English speaking CHR radio, Beat FM had broken the CHR barriers with a 1st of April fool, as it broadcasted old Arabic songs on its airwaves! Not any songs, but those from old cartoon series translated in Arabic, and which we used to follow when we were little kids back in time. Those cartoon songs were presented within Beat FM's special promotion for “Fresh New Beats” :) ... 2 of those promotions are included in the 13th episode.

On the other hand, Radio Al-Balad had also broken the barriers, by having western music, more specifically Rock and Metal music starting to be aired on its airwaves through a specialized show entitled “Rock with Ghassan”. This programs comes as part of Radio Al-Balad's new programs grid which began on Saturday 4-4-2009. the show which comes out every Thursday from 7.30 PM is now the 4th of a kind, after Beat FM's, Spin Jordan's and Radio Jordan's rock shows. [show promotion attached]

also in this new programs grid, several shows got introduced on Radio Al-Balad, like “Sa7ebat al-qarar”, a legal information show for women, “Made in Jordan”, yet another sport program called “Mala3eb Ordoniah” and a come back for the cultural show “bera2e7at al-qahwa”.

One of the good things in this new programs grid (as radio al-balad changes its programs grid several times a year being a community radio), is the fact that most of the major shows are still on their same air times and days. And this is a good step, as changing the programs timing continuously makes the station loose listenership, due to the fact that a lot of listeners may stop listening to the radio station as their favorite shows get changes in times (maybe now you might know why most the commercial stations have the same programs and timings since they were lunched).

Indeed, sometimes the change is needed if there are fatal mistakes in the programming, at that case, re-programming [content and timing] are more of a need. An example of that was the dramatic changes in the programs grid on radio al-balad at the beginning of the year.

My Radio Segment, Episode 12

2009-04-14T08:21:00.000+03:00

This episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

This episode, aired on the 30th of march, was more of a rumble, about the impact of having Jordanian radio stations covering all the places throughout Jordan, and the media role of radio station in delivering the information to citizens through its airwaves, regardless of the main objective of these radios.

Taking as an example the transition to daylight summertime over that weekend and the participation of Jordan in the earth hour initiative, plenty of people did not got information on these “announcement” properly or clear enough, or not even at all maybe! Despite the fact of having all those radio stations populating the airwaves, & despite the high claimed listenership of radios. Which is an entertainment and media mean that is completely free and can be made available through the simplest ways and devices, without the need of having to current electricity even.

As the options went multiple for the listeners, people are no longer depending on the official state radio, or news radio stations to obtain information and entertainment. Thus, to ensure that the examples mentioned above of information would reach to the entire nations, Radio stations, regardless of their different types and genres, should stay apart from the formal nature in the provision of those kind of information. What would stop entertainment radio station (be it that they broadcast news bulletins or not) from playing a simple and inexpensive media role, by providing through its usual entertaining programs such sorts of simple information that would be of an interest to the whole nation in an informal and smooth way, ensure it would be reachable for all sorts of people. This may be the minimal media role radio stations can do for people, and this is for sure a responsibility for those radio stations against the airwaves they broadcast in.

Of course, the impact of having Jordanian radio stations covering different regions across the kingdom is much reflected on the reliability of the local media and dependency of people to obtain their information from the Jordanian media instead of neighboring countries media, and therefore gives an impact on the delivery of direct information concerning the citizens of these areas.

We might be now in a good situation as far as radio coverage is concerned in comparison with several years back, that is, as Radio Fann FM is covering all areas in Jordan throughout 11 radio frequencies, and is even covering more areas that the official state-owned Radio Jordan stations across the FM dial. Which puts on Fann FM - owned the Jordanian armed forces – big responsibility in serving the people in areas where no other radio stations reach, especially areas like Al-Karak , Al-Azraq, and Al Ruweished to the East from Mafraq.

Before this revolution on the airwaves, there were many areas across the Kingdom, especially border areas, whose residents used to depend on radio stations from neighboring countries. One good example is Irbid in the North,as at the time there were no jordanian radio stations covering that region, while southern Lebanon was occupied and no FM radio stations were available in Syria, so the only option for the residents of that area was Radio Israel Arabic service, as well as some of the Arab Israelis owned radio stations. This was for sure a case that is not to be accepted neither by officials nor the public. and although Jordanian radio station's frequencies has increased and reached over 15 in irbid area, those compete now with many radio stations from the neighboring three countries.

This issue of having Jordanian radio stations covering jordan and having them as a primary source of information for Jordanians across jordan may require efforts from both the AVC and TRC, to encourage opening radio stations in various regions of the country especially border area, be it local radio stations or frequencies for Jordanian radio stations broadcasting in other areas of the country.

Also, planning frequencies with neighboring countries should be a high responsibility for both the AVC and TRC, especially with regard to radios from neighboring countries broadcasting through the depth of Jordanian territories, and beyond the border areas, such as the Saudi Quran Radio broadcasting on 91.7 FM and covering wide areas that reach even to Jerash and Ajloun areas, and the official Syrian radio stations that reach even to the capital Amman on several frequencies such as 100.9 FM and 92.6 FM affecting even some Jordanian radio station's broadcasting in northern jordan (Watan FM on 92.7 FM), and the capital (Radio Al-Balad 92.4 FM)

Radio Guide Update: Jordan University Radio on 94.9 FM

2009-04-08T13:16:00.000+03:00

Jordan University Radio started its test transmission on 94.9 FM covering Amman Greater Area.

The Radio station, which will be more of a cultural-political "students radio", will be starting officially soon, and the moment of writing this post, only Classic Music is being aired on its airwaves.

Radio Guide Update: Sawt Al-Karak on 91.3 FM

2009-04-08T08:07:00.003+03:00

Two days ago, Sawt Al-Karak, which is Mutah University's Radio, started its test broadcasting on 91.3 FM for the Karak region.

The local radio station, owned by the university, will be more of a community radio for Al-Karak region, which misses any other radio station on its airwaves except for Fann FM. and is scheduled to officially launch its programs soon during May.

My Radio Segment, Episode 11

2009-04-05T08:51:00.000+03:00

This episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

This episode, aired on March 23rd (sorry for the late publishing), was mainly oriented towards reviewing what was on the Jordanian airwaves in the previous period, in which i had more specific subjects to talk about in my radio segment.

Starting from radio Ayyam FM. Where the radio comedian Nadeem Sarraj, famous for quite a while now for his comedy character "Rajee Dwara" in the funny sketches of “Nakshet Mokh” on Mazaj FM, Nadeem now became part of Ayyam FM's airwaves starting mid February 2009, with a new radio comedy show entitled "Etla3 Men Rasee" and with a new character names "Dr Refa'at" doing phone pranks with all sorts of people.

On March 1st, Radio Jordan Broadcasting celebrated its 50th anniversary, of launching Radio Jordan Broadcasting from its current location in Um Alhairan. Although the history of Radio Jordan goes back to 1948 when it was located in Ramallah, and this was declared officially by the Jordanian Parliament to be the official Jordanian radio station in 1950. while the radio presence in Amman wasn't until 1956 when a subsidiary station was opened in Amman under the name of "Radio Amman" and used to broadcast for no more than 8 hours a day from a building in Jabal Al - Hussein. However, the launch from Um Alhairan in 1959 was the point of switch to Radio Jordan to the concept of modern state radio, as it had their an independent modern building equipped with several studios, sound engineering rooms, news editing rooms.. etc , in addition to the co-opening of a broadcasting antenna and station in the area near Naour bridge. Radio Jordan Broadcasting is of course still evolving, and currently operates several radio stations as well as several radio frequencies, which are not limited to the FM frequencies we might know throughout Jordan, but with also several frequencies via which Radio Jordan broadcasts through the short waves, enabling it to reach all around the world from Al-Harraneh Antenna station near Queen Alia Airport.

Also on the 1st March, the cold wave that brought in snow to the kingdom, had its effect on the radio programming as well, but unfortunately, not on all the radio stations. Many radio station didn't give attention at all even to it, like if they are broadcasting in another country!!!! On the contrary were Radio Fann FM (which even postponed a prepared subject for that days episode of Al-Wakeel's morning show) , Amen FM (which of course kept following up the situation of all the roads in the kingdom with up to date information), and Play FM, which had a good interaction with the listeners about it, and was even announcing for example the universities that had stopped their lectures for that day or postponed them like other radio stations.

Moving to 4 March 2009, when we have witnessed across the Jordanian airwaves a nice experience of unifying two stations broadcasts, that are, Radio Al-balad, and Radio Arabisc in Damascus, through a joint program speaking about therapist tourism of both countries and with the participation of radio announcers from both station in a live broadcasting. This program will continue on monthly basis on both stations, on the first Wednesday of every month at 10 PM.

Also, starting earlier this month, with the announcement of HM Queen Rania's initiative of "Ahel Al-Himmeh", we started listening to announcements and promotions of this initiative through the airwaves of all radio stations. This for sure demonstrates the importance of the radio media sector, and its power of reaching the message directly and smoothly to all sorts of people where-ever they are. [The Promotion attached]

Of course, we can't wrap this review, without reviewing what we had on the Jordanian airwaves for mother's day, which was more of a “Mother's week” on the Jordanian radio stations, due to their huge interaction with this occasion over an entire week. This started with Radio Sawt alghad, which held a big festive event & contest starting Friday 13-3-2009 over 3 consecutive days in City Mall. The contest was in a form of a race between the mothers in performing home work cleaning, and with the participation of several sponsors and companies who had gifts for the participating mothers. Sawt Al-Ghad didn't stop there, as it had quite a big concentration on this occasion throughout its programs across that week, as well as on most of the radio stations, that came up with all sorts of prizes and contests for this occasion, with gifts reaching even to the value of 1000 JDs like we had on Energy FM.

Also, several radio stations had special programs that went on their airwaves for this occasion, and even on mother's day it self, Saturday 21-3-2009, as we had on Watan FM, Ayyam FM, and Radio Jordan English Service.

But maybe, the most notable special show, was the special episode from Al-Wakeel's morning show on Radio Fann FM, aired on Thursday 19-3-2009 and replayed on Saturday. The show was more of an emotional and humanitarian one, as the the program's team had researched and investigated to host 10 mothers that have been, and still, struggle in this life as mothers to cope with their difficult lives with their families and children. The show presenter Mohammad Al-Wakeel reviewed their cases on the air and rewarded them on this occasion. In addition of course to the usual interaction from individuals and different institutes for their cases. [Different segments recordings from the show attached].
Radio Sawt Al-Madina also had a special program for this occasion during mother's day, but was quite a different one, as it was hosted by the guys from "3alarasi.com" , which we have been hearing a lot lately on Sawt Al-Madina, making it more of a comedy and funny show on this occasion, as one of their mothers was also co-hosting the show with them, and had a nice interactive touch on the show.

Last but not least, Spin Jordan had showed again its creativity and high quality of production on this occasion, as it had a small nice, comic, and yet realistic promotion on this occasion playing on its airwaves all over the week. [Promotion attached].

Earth Hour in Jordan, the unclear message!

2009-03-28T21:35:00.001+03:00

Lights off,AC off,Laptop on Battery mode, just the network line in to work and listen to the rockout on Spin Jordan :D .. its Earth Hour!

This is the way i contributed for the past 60 minutes for Earth Hours 2009 while being at work in a dark 4 walls no windows room in which i'm writing this at the moment.. Earth Hour 2009 in which Jordan had participated this year, with lights going off in several main streets, like: Gardens, Thaqafe, Mecca Street, Zahran, Istiklal, Queen Alia, and others. As well as all the main squares in the capital Amman, and all the official governmental offices & ministries (which are already closed at this time, especially in a weekend!). In addition to a candles walk toward wild jordan in Jabal Amman...all backed by the Ministry of Environment and the GAM.

So fine so far, but the unfine thing, is how much propaganda people do about it and about the objectives behind that...! from what i've seen until now and witnessed, i officially declare that the objectives of this initiative didn't reach for most Jordanians, particularly ammanites in my witnesses case!!!!

That is, because i, as well as several colleagues of mine, we have witnessed a lot of people chitchating on the street, even just minutes before earlier around 8 PM, that all the government will CUT OFF the electricity today at 8.30 PM in the whole Amman!!! this is what people got from it! Yes! Without caring to know why, what, how! Or even if they got the message correctly!

That even included the guys in the company in which i work, and whom have sent an IT Department guy to turn off all our severs resources!!!! until we have convinced him not to! After we cleared out the message to him and his manager via phone.

Now thats a big question mark! Is the mass media in our country weak enough, or are the people just propagandists, or both!!! in all cases, this is something that needs to be solved!

Anyway, more about earth hour from fellow jordanian bloggers:
Naseem Tarawneh
Farah Nimri
Eman

Jordanian Radio Ratings 2008 - My Radio Segment Episode,Episode 10

2009-03-22T08:22:00.000+02:00

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

This week's radio segment tackled IREX Jordan's Media survey, and particularly the Radio Section of the survey about Jordan Radio Ratings for the year 2008.

I have tackled in a post last year this time IREX Jordan's survey for the Jordanian Radio Ratings for the year 2007.

1st of all, to make things clear, the study considers to survey results:
Listenership for a period of 30 days from the survey: This would show the general listenership for radio, and what the surveyed had listened to within month.
Listenership for a period of 1 days prior to the survey: This would show the loyalty of listening to radio or to a specific radio station.

On the general level, and surprisingly, the radio listenership regardless of the station listened to, has DROPPED in 2008! regardless of the fact that the number of radio stations and frequencies covering the kingdom with radio transmission had increased! As 45.9% used to listen on daily basis to radio in 2007, the number has dropped to 43.7% only in 2008! and amazingly more, the big drop was in the youth of ages 15-29, from which less than 45.9% are listening to radio now, after the listenership percentage was 54.3% last year among them!

An almost 8.5% drop among the group mostly targeted on in our Jordanian radio stations. Are the Jordanian youth getting board of the copycats among Jordanian Radio Stations, where creativity seems to be stopping, and where most of the radio stations just trying to copy each other with a show or 2 on the air, and leave the rest to computers randomly shuffling music that you can heard on several other competitive radio station, or simply, pirated from the internet and played on your car radio or headset using an MP3 player, nothing more, nothing less.

Aren't Jordanian Radio stations thinking seriously about MP3 players, MP3 car modulators, Internet radio, and even TV and DVDs as competitors?! If they aren't then ... WRONG ANSWER! THINK AGAIN .... competition is not only about what other radio stations are playing or doing, and its not only about attracting another stations' listeners... its more over to getting those who don't listen to radio, never did, or quited doing so, back to listen to the airwaves through your radio station. Otherwise, we will just have 100 radio stations with 10% of the population listening to them! And out of a sudden we will have only 5 radio stations owned by the government on the airwaves after the rest of them get shut down! Not a happy ending in my imagination!

For the time being, the sector is still in a good shape, and the best in the Jordanian media scene with 67.8% of listenership within 30 days from the survey, much more exceeding newspapers (30.45%), magazines(8.45%).

The study included this year the way & place of listening to radio. One of the interesting things was that the study showed that just under 20% of the people listen to radio through Mobile phones that have FM receivers. The majority of those (over 60%) are youth, mostly school or university students, as this is their primary entertainment mean while being on the way from and to their universities/schools, or between the classes. On the other hand, listening to Jordanian radio stations via the internet didn't exceed 6.6%, as online broadcasting is more used by Jordanian abroad that jordnaians in jordan who can receive the stations via the FM. As for places where radio is mostly listen to, home was the biggest rate with 55.2% (with a big rate of house wives) followed by cars with just under 35%, at work 7.6% and 2.6% while moving by bus.

Before starting to review the radio ratings. And since there has been some debate about this study with regards to the written media and online media. And from my own point of view, i don't have any comments on it as far as the results are concerned, and i think the results show up a real view for the situation of the Jordanian airwaves. But i rather have some comments related to the “Radio Industry knowledge”!

1st of all, The study, or the people behind it, seem to have forgotten some radio stations! Sunny 105.1 FM wasn't mentioned though it was 7 months old at the time of the survey, nor Hawa Amman Radio (The GAM's radio) which has been on air for the same period. Also, both Yarmouk FM and Sawt New Maan weren't either mentioned nor given a rate though the study covered all Jordanian cities including Maan and Irbid! Even if some of those radio stations would have got 0.0% (which is impossible I guess!), they should have been mentioned with this result..

Also, the names of some radio stations or frequencies got some mistakes, just like Radio Al-Balad, which is still mentioned in the study as AmmanNet FM, and Sawt Al-Madina, whose frequency is 88.7 FM and not 88.5 FM (which was just a testing frequency before the official lunch of the station).

And not to forget, the stations belonging to Radio Jordan Broadcasting Corporation are a bit messed up. So apart from Amman FM, The Main Program is put in the survey as Jordan AM and Jordan FM 88 Mhz, which is actually the same radio station (as the main program), and it has AM frequencies as well as FM frequencies, and the FM frequencies in Amman for the Main Program of Radio Jordan Broadcasting has been changed to 90.0 FM and 106.7 FM for over a year now, and Amman FM is being broadcasted on 88.0 FM as 99.0 FM.

Anyway, here are the rating results according to the survey. Followed by some of my comments on them.

Radio Ratings Results for a period of 30 days from the survey:
1.Fann FM (49.5 %)
2.Quran Radio (44.9 % )
3.Amman FM (31.4 %)
4.Radio Amen FM (25.9 %)
5.Radio Rotana (25.3 %)
6.Hayat FM (18.0 %)
7.Radio Jordan Broadcasting – The Main Program (17.8 %)
8.Mazaj FM (14.5 %)
9.Sawt Al-Ghad (8.4 %)
10.Melody FM (7.5 %)
11.Watan FM (7.5 %)
12.Radio Sawt Al-Madina (5.2 %)
13.Radio Jordan English Service - 96.3 FM (3.1 %)
14.Radio Al-Balad (3.1 %)
15.Radio Farah Al-Nas (2.9 %)
16.Radio Jordan Broadcasting, The Main Program, through the FM (2.6 %)
17.Ayyam FM (2.4 %)
18.Mood FM (1.8 %)
19.Play FM (1.8 %)
20.Ahlen FM (1.8 %)
21.Beat FM (1.6 %)
22.Energy FM (0.9 %)
23.Spin FM (0.8 %)

Radio Ratings Results for the day prior to the survey: (Loyalty Ratings)
1.Fann FM (23.1 %)
2.Quran Radio (19.7 % )
3.Radio Amen FM (9.5 %)
4.Radio Rotana (9.3 %)
5.Amman FM (9.1 %)
6.Radio Jordan Broadcasting – The Main Program (7.0 %)
7.Hayat FM (5.1 %)
8.Mazaj FM (4.9 %)
9.Melody FM (2.1 %)
10.Radio Sawt Al-Madina (1.9 %)
11.Watan FM (1.8 %)
12.Radio Sawt Al-Madina (1.3 %)
13.Radio Jordan English Service - 96.3 FM (1.3 %)
14.Radio Jordan Broadcasting, The Main Program, through the FM (1.0 %)
15.Radio Al-Balad (0.8 %)
16.Radio Farah Al-Nas (0.8 %)
17.Play FM (0.8 %)
18.Beat FM (0.8 %)
19.Ayyam FM (0.7 %)
20.Mood FM (0.6 %)
21.Energy FM (0.5 %)
22.Spin FM (0.4 %)
23.Ahlen FM (0.4 %)

Fann FM is still on TOP! And is still getting advantage of the full coverage through its 11 frequencies to beat even the official state owned radio station. And Quran FM (with all its 3 local frequencies) is still second, regardless of the fact that Hayat FM (the only private religious radio) is trying to attract many listeners with its variety religious programs along with quran and ad'ieah, but despite the fact Hayat FM's listenership increased, its still less the quarter from Quran FM.

With a big increase from last year, Radio Amen FM is pretty notable now on the scene, the good programming according to the station's objectives, as well as the opening of 2 new frequencies were much of a help in having this big rating. And all of us know how much this station is famous against the taxi and bus drivers, since its becoming their road assistant on the ways around jordan.

The Jordanian Broadcasting Corporation's radio stations are still in a good shape. So Amman FM for example is still a big competitor against commercial FM stations. And Radio Jordan Broadcasting – The Main Program is still with the same ratings from last year (when adding both FM and AM ratings), and is still doing pretty well in the early morning hours.

On the other hand, when looking at English speaking / western music radio stations, we can notice how low ratings they have, despite all the competition they have between them, but even Radio Jordan – English Service is doing better than them with way too much! Yes! 4 CHR radios and 2 AC Radios as well as Ahlen FM (which went off earlier this year), couldn't any of them get even close enough to RJ 96.3 FM. This might show that the re-programming and re-orientation of Radio Jordan English Service was much of a good step (though its not yet as complete as it should be). But! There you go! They have beaten our fancy CHR radios! And is doing even better than some Arabic radio station.

But Anyway, those commercial english speaking radio stations are doing much better this year than the year before, even with double or more than last year's ratings on the “loyalty rating scale”. Which might mean that those stations are attracting people either from those listening to Arabic stations or from totally non-radio fan people to listen to them. Which is pretty good!

Play FM and Beat FM are competing hardly on top of the CHR radio rating when it comes to daily listeners to them, and they have even beaten Mood FM, which was beating both of them last year. But an interesting observation is that Ahlen FM had as high monthly rating as Play and Mood FM! And was doing pretty much well to shutdown several weeks ago!!! though it didn't had that much loyal listeners.

Taking a look over the ratings of the stations lunched in 2008 (& mentioned in the survey) for a period of 30 days prior (since you can't judge they have gathered enough loyal listeners, especially that some of them were lunched just 2 months before the survey) . [Farah Al-Nas, Ayyam FM, Energy FM, Spin FM] ... I consider them doing pretty good! And with good potentials to raise to better ratings during 2009.

Another interesting chart that can be found in the survey is this ...

You can just see how the pattern of attracting listeners change along the day.
Notice how Radio Jordan Broadcasting – Main Service and Fann FM are attracting most of their listeners in the morning. And how during housewives peak listenership stations that have shows in those times like Amman FM, Hayat FM, Quran Radio, Sawt Al-Ghad are attracting this type of listeners who are making more than half of the listeners at this time in the day. (a good re-thinking point for those stations thinking they are attracting housewives and females in generals, while having the 10 AM – 3 PM time slot empty!). Notice also how the changes in the evening hours (the preferred listening hours for youth according to this survey, as over 43-51% from the listeners after 6 PM are under 24!) turn to be concentrated on Melody, Sawt Al-Ghad and Mazaj FM. Yet another message for the stations trying to attract youth, and with empty programming or “let the computer shuffle the music” after 6 PM policies ... while those times are mainly considered study times for students in schools or on campus, those times are preferred by them for listening to the radio. Things get interesting enough when seeing in this survey that those 3 stations for example are doing better in the overnight period (9 PM – 6 AM) than the drive back period (in which 2 of them have extensively famous shows! ).

My Radio Segment, Episode 9

2009-03-08T08:23:00.001+02:00

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

Just like last week, this week's episode continued the review of Jordanian radio station's websites.

We Start this week from the radio stations that provide celebrity news and all sort of gossip and light news through their website, Sawt El-Ghad's website (www.sawtelghad.fm ) provides up to date celebrity news for its visitors, pretty similar to its “Al-Ghad news” that goes through its airwaves. That is, along with pretty good content about the station, its programs and radio announcers, throughout a nice and simple website. Maybe the only bad thing about it is the similarity of the URL address with Sawt El-Ghad lebanon, whose website is (www.sawtelghad.com ).

On the other side, Radio Sawt Al-Madina had tried, after a while of having its website not updated, to remake the website, and add a section for the celebrity news and gossip, along with the details about the radio station and its programs, as well as introduce a new address leading to it, that is (www.887.fm). But unfortunately, seems the dynamicity of Sawt Al-Madina and its programs on the airwaves do not match the dynamicity of its website, as the website hasn't been updated since it was redeveloped.

Whilst, news and gossip content are not that much updated either through Ayyam FM's website (www.ayyamfm.jo), whose design and colors are pretty much compatible with the station's logo, and the website do still has a lot of empty pages, and even some with rubbish characters in it. But the transmission throughout the website is of a very high 128 kpbs quality, and it can be heard for the user without the need of having any special software or codics installed on that client's machine as most of the other radio station's transmissions, since it's being done using the Flash technology from within the user's browser.

Same broadcasting technology is being used by the sister radio station, Spin FM through its website(www.spin.jo), the website is also pretty similar to Ayyam FM's in the layout, but when it comes to content, Spin FM's website is very rich and regularly updated with all sorts of news and gossip, and even some internal affair news that can be political (alrabie demonstrations during the last attack on gaza are an example). That is, along with a detailed description about the station, its programs, radio announcers and DJs, as well as an up to date review of the latest music albums, movies, video games. And even a list of the latest music that is being aired on Spin FM's airwaves that can be listened to through the website and rated, and Spin FM truly increases or decreases the frequency of airplay for those songs depending on the rating done by its listeners through the website. And not to forget that the website provides a way to communicate with the DJ being on duty at the moment and request a song from him/her. But maybe the only annoying thing is the website's font inconsistency in a lot of its pages, the visitor can even find several types and sizes of fonts within the same page!

The visitor of Play FM's website, www.play.jo, wil be also able to listen to some of the latest music that is being played on its airwaves. The website is very neat and all its sections are updated continuously, from weather to the events calendar. And the fact that Play FM has a blog in its website is also a big plus, and a one of a kind way (between the Jordanian radio stations) of communicating with the station's listeners, especially throughout the ability to comment on the posts, as its the only station the has a blog in jordan, as well as the only one that has a youtube channel. And the interaction would have been even higher if the blog was assisted by an RSS feed as well.

Rich and regularly updated content, ranging from celebrity news to the latest releases in music and movies, as well as a very nice and compliant website design with the station's logo can be found in Beat FM's website (www.mybeat.fm). The website is indeed an addition to the competency between those 3 lately mentioned CHR radio stations, which seem to have extended the competition between them beyond the FM airwaves over to the web as well, leaving behind all the other Arabic radio stations.

Mood FM as well has a nice website and up to this competency i've mentioned earlier, and one that can be even modified by the user according to his preferences, all of this can be found on www.mood.fm, along with the possibility to know the song and singer of the track currently played on the airwaves of mood fm, that is in addition to several pages that include the latest releases, variety news, and the possibility to contact the current DJ and request a song.

Mazaj FM's website is also capable of showing its visitor the song and singer of the current track, but this is probably the only thing working in the website, www.mazajfm.com ... the website is very old and completely out of date, but fortunately, it has a forum through which one can register and discuss several issues, being the only website with a forum in it.

Hayat FM's website, www.hayat.fm is on the other hand very regular and has enough useful content about the station and its programs, in addition to the live broadcasting.

On the contrary, we find Radio Farah Al-nas's website, www.farahalnas.jo, it only has the station's logo, and indication that the website is still under construction, and the live broadcasting starts up along with the website, which can be very annoying for the users.

Amen FM's website (www.amenfm.jo) as well is still under construction, as all its sections are disabled, but it seems that there is a plan to have several useful pages and services through the website when its development will end, that is, in addition to the live broadcasting link.

Last but not least, Yarmouk FM, Sawt Maan Al-Jadeeda, and Hawa Amman Radio do not have websites. The links in Yarmouk University and King Hussein University website for Yarmouk FM, Sawt Maan Al-Jadeeda respectively lead the user to a brochure about the station. While the link for Hawa Amman Radio in the GAM's website lead to the live broadcasting streaming.

As you might have mentioned, i excluded from this review the websites of non Jordanian radio broadcasting in jordan, namely BBC Arabic and their website (www.bbcarabic.com) and RMC international and their website (www.rmc-mo.com). As those are very rich and powerful websites in both content and structure, and no Jordanian websites are to be compared to them, except maybe for Radio al-balad's.

Its also interesting to mention that most of the websites don't belong to the .jo domain, for reasons that i personally don't know, but indeed the complexity and extensive costs of getting a .jo domain are indeed part of that.

This week, tomorrow that is, there will be no episode, but next Monday March the 16th , i will be reviewing IREX Jordan's media survey, and review the Jordanian Radio Station's 2008 rating results.

My Radio Segment, Episode 8

2009-03-01T11:07:00.001+02:00

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

This week's episode (Actually last week's, as i have published this on my blog late enough that i'm already recording the 9th episode now!), as well as next week's episode (tomorrow's) will discuss the web sites of radio stations broadcasting over the Jordanian airwaves. Since the radio industry is going these days beyond the limitations of the airwaves over the FM dial, for a world with larger potentials and competition over the world wide web. That is, since on the internet there are thousands or tens of thousands of radio stations in various languages, broadcasting various genres of music and topics, from all around the world. And most of these stations do not broadcast over the airwaves, and behind them stand individuals and not companies or institutions, as with limited and simple costs, and with creative ideas and some technicalities, anyone can establish an Internet radio station and website.

Radio stations benefit from their presence on the Internet. As along with broadcasting across the network to have anyone around the world being able to listen to the station, the radio station's website is an important mean of communication between the Radio and its listeners, and can be considered a primary information reference about the station's programs and broadcasting times, and even the content of these programs. Broadcasters can also exploit their websites to provide additional added services to listeners. And even supply content that it cannot or is not licensed to be provided through the airwaves.

For the Jordanian radio stations, Radio Al-Balad may be considered a model and probably the most sophisticated radio with presence over the Internet. This is due to the fact that the radio started broadcasting the Internet through (www.ammannet.net) with the name of AmmanNet before even granting radio broadcasting licenses in jordan for private Jordanian radio stations. And continued developing its website even after starting broadcasting on the FM airwaves, and even after changing the name to Radio Al-Balad.

Radio Al-Balad provides through its website www.ammannet.net archived episodes of all its programs as well as all the news reports, in both text and recorded format. In addition to detailed live news content, and the possibility to comment on these news and programs. The site also provides a number of blogs for several of its own radio announcers, where they express their views and lives. But the only thing that might be disturbing, is the current difference between the radio naming “Radio Al-Balad” after changing its name, and the website that remained as it is when it comes to the URL through which it's accessed.

The Jordanian Broadcasting Corporation and in all divisions, Vemoqaha site is part of the Radio and Television www.jrtv.jo and more overlap with the location of the Jordanian state television. And most of the pages and links, although I have said it before, either empty or contain outdated information.

The Radio Fann FM on the other hand has a simple but nice website, in which details about its radio programs and communicating with them. But the site is relatively old, as we can find details about programs that went off the air for nearly two years now. Radio Fann FM is a pioneer in broadcasting, as it was until not so long the only Jordanian station broadcasting with a sound quality of 128 Kbps, and one that matches the sound on the FM band, the website www.radiofann.com also offers the ability to watch the radio announcers and DJs working in the studio Live through the web camera installed in their studios.

The same technique of broadcasting using a web cam can be found on Radio Rotana's website. Which is actually part of the Rotana network website www.rotana.net, making it hard to access the radio station's website directly, which contains information and details about all the network's radio stations and not only Radio Rotana Jordan. But choosing Rotana Jordan in the transmission section will enable the user to listen live through several techniques, whether with different degrees of sound quality, or through the webcams from the station's studios.

The Web Cam technology is also available to listeners of Energy FM, which is managed and operated by the same company, Al-Kawn Media. Through the website www.radioenergy.fm, but the site is currently empty and has been under construction for more than 10 months now, the age of the site and the radio station, and the user will not find more than the station's logo on the homepage in addition to the transmission link.

The same situation will face the browser of Sunny FM's website, www.sunny.jo The site is also limited to a home page containing the station's logo and a link to listen to the live broadcasting.

Last but not least, Watan FM has a website (www.watanonline.net) that is somehow confusing for the visitor, it still includes old pages with old information about the station and its programs, which radically changed since awhile after the station's radio programs were changes, especially after the news that the owners of the station have changed. At the same time, new information about the new programs can also be found in the site along with the old ones, and not to forget, there are several empty pages and inactive links.

The remaining radio stations' websites review will follow, in this week's episode.

Remember that you can contribute too, and send in your comments, feedback and any radio observations on radio@ammannet.net

How Jordanian Radio stations stand against the web revolution!

2009-02-23T09:07:00.002+02:00

How Jordanian Radio stations stand against the web revolution!

This question is raised and discussed in today's episode of my radio segment, as well next week's. Broadcasted monday morning , at 10.30 AM throughout the show "Eye on Media" on Radio Al-Balad 92.4 FM

The episodes will be also available through my blog later in the week.

I need to know your opinions about the Jordanian radio stations websites. what do you think about them, who's hot, and who's not on the web! other than the airwaves, and are they up to the competition against 1000s of radio stations on the web?

My Radio Segment, Episode 7

2009-02-18T08:16:00.000+02:00

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

I was kind of confused whether to cover what most of the Jordanian Radio stations had done on the occasion of the Valentine's day during the past week, as most of them had huge notable interaction with the occasion throughout competitions and prices, special show and special segments within usual shows for this occasion, and even the variety of music was carefully selected for this occasion. But, I canceled all my plans to talk about this as i heard Sawt Al-Madina's “Anti Valentine Show” on the valentine day it self, Saturday the 14th of February 2009, with which Radio Sawt Al-Madina broke the rules with this show which was prepared and presented by Muhannad Al-Shahwan along with the guys behind the comedian comics website, 3alarasi.com, the show discussed in a comedian way the idea of celebrating this occasion, and interacted with people about it, who in return had huge interaction with the show in away that even lead to extend the 2 hours proposed for the show. [sound recording attached]

On the sector's news, Virgin Radio officially started campaigning for its radio station in Jordan. After over a year of rumors about Virgin Radio getting into the sector in Jordan, they finally did show it for the public, through a store that it seems to have rented at City Mall Amman, that is being prepared for something we don't know yet, and has on its facade the logo of the station, and a statement that Virgin Radio Jordan is coming soon on the airwaves.
What Virgin seems to do, is what i have talked about a couple of episodes ago, that is, a radio shop to intercommunicate with its listeners and attract the public to it.

For the people into Rock Music, from now on they will be able to choose and decide! As we are having more rock shows in town! After long years of exclusivity in playing this genre of music only on the airwaves of Radio Jordan's English Service, whose Rock Show was even put on hold several times due to unknown reasons, with gossips relating it to several law breaking incidents for people taking some sorts of Rock Music as a sign for their illegal actions. This entire exclusivity has broke up last year with Beat FM's Rock N Jordan, and now with Spin FM's new rock show that airs on Saturdays 7 – 10 PM.

From time to time, I will be introducing you to one of the radio stations on the Jordanian airwaves within my segment. And since we had kind of started this already a couple of weeks ago when we have talked about Melody FM Jordan, when I have spoken to its CEO, this we week i talked about Radio Sawt Al-Madina.

Sawt Al-Madina, owned by Al-Baddad Holding Group, started its test transmission in March 2007 on 88.5 FM, and later in April of the same year lunched its transmission officially on the frequency of 88.7 FM in the Greater Amman Area. After Al-Baddad group had already started its way in the media field with a weekly free newspaper. The group is also planning to lunch a radio and TV production company, as well as package of TV stations.

The station got its license from the AVC as a political , conversational, and entertainment radio station, targeting with that all sorts of people, starting from Youth and students, to women and business men, and Families in general. As this station is known for its dynamism and variety in its shows, and for depending on the strategy of show-audience-targets rather than having a station-audience-target. Thus, beside hour by hour news, as well as political debates and reports and special news coverages, the station has various sets of programs with different targets, and a big variety in them, their objectives, scopes, and even music. And we can even hear some western hit music in some the shows, something that is not that usual on similar Arabic stations in the Jordanian airwaves.

Last but not least, its worth mentioning the radio Sawt Al-Madina broadcasts through its frequency 88.7 FM for the areas of the Greater Amman Area, Zarqa, Salt, and Madaba. The strong transmission also reaches to regions in Karak, Jerash, and Mafraq.

Remember that you can contribute too, and send in your comments, feedback and any radio observations on radio@ammannet.net

and note that this segment is being replayed Wednesdays at 4 PM now, beside the basic airplay time, Mondays at 10.30 AM.

Blogging Arabia: From Obscurity to Community

2009-02-17T15:22:00.000+02:00

The Canadian Embassy and itoot.com invite bloggers in Amman to attend a public lecture by Canadian Professor and Arab Media Expert Adel Iskandar entitled:

"Blogging Arabia: From Obscurity to Community"

at the City Chamber Council at the Greater Amman Municipality on Thursday 19th February at 6:00 pm.

information at : 0799992972

Virgin Radio Amman ... Coming Soon! even in the Mall!

2009-02-11T14:42:00.006+02:00

Update: Virgin Radio Jordan is on 93.7 FM

I 1st heard the news of Virgin Radio coming to Jordan exactly 1 year from now in February 2008, from a source that used to work with the Virgin Empire. and heard all sorts of ups and down, this and that, chit and chat about it. a couple of things were only confirmed to me, that its coming, and it has nothing to do with ARN the operators of Virgin radio in Dubai.

Finally, Last week we started seeing an existence for Virgin Radio in Jordan , more specifically in City Mall!

This is near the northern entrance of the mall, one empty shop has this on its facade, as if its being prepared to open "Soon, a bright star will rock Jordan" Virgin Radio.

Virgin Radio seem to be coming to jordan with a concept i just discussed in my last week's segment, that is Radio Shops, as it would be made obvious by this shop.

Now i heard that Virgin Radio will be "Yet another CHR station" in Jordan. I still hope not, as the current 4 are more than enough. its like if they are all out of styles! but regardless of that, they are coming closer and closer to the public, and this shop will be a proof!

Note that according to the information i gathered until now, this shop has nothing to do with the Virgin Megastore meters away, as that one owned by Azadea Group.

My Radio Segment, Episode 6

2009-02-10T14:36:00.002+02:00

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

As promised in a previous episode, this episode will be widely take into consideration the Universities radio stations, but before that, here's what we had on the Jordanian airwaves during the past week:

We start from several activities by a couple of Jordanian radio stations to support the people of Gaza. Mazaj FM's event, which was a political-comedy play by a group of Palestinian artists entitled “Gaza – Ramallah” was held last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 5,6, & respectively 7 February 2009, and had the revenues of this event collected for Gaza through “Tkyet Um Ali” foundation's campaign. & Mazaj FM had promotions for this event for the entire week on its airwaves. Another event is Sunny FM's poetry night with the Palestinian poet, Suhair Hammad, that is to be held on February 17th. This is the 2nd activity for Modern Media Co after the successful one held by Play 99.6 for this cause, and which was mentioned in several episodes of this segment [event announcement recording attached].

On the Jordanian Airwaves, Friday 6-2-2009 was probably the most notable one on the Jordanian airwaves with having the Tawjihi results being announced. Despite the fact that Friday is not a day with on air shows for most of the radio stations.

Starting from Friday morning, where the tawjihi results topic was all over Radio Amman FM's shows, even the sports show being aired in the morning, and the interaction followed on all the next shows on its airwaves. Same case was on Radio Jordan – English Service, whose famous show “Listener's Choice” had also a high degree of interaction on this occasion in a funny and a joyful style. Hayat FM on the other hand had a special show on its airwaves in the afternoon of that day for receiving the phone calls and greeting of listeners celebrating the occasion, the presenter of the show was also mentioning from time to time during the show positive & kind suggestions to celebrate this occasion, instead of some bad habits that are being used to celebrate it. Similar suggestions were also discussed by the presenters of “The Boring Show” on Ayyam FM, but in a more comedy style, this topic had taken quite a big part of this show the usually has no certain topic to talk about. And the day ended with “Shabab 3al FM” on Radio Al-Balad, that had a big rate of interaction and phone calls and greetings on this occasion.

Starting Sunday 8-2-2009, a new guidance radio segment started on Amen FM for the school students, the segment presented by the Jordanian comedian “Hussein Tbeishat” aims to increase the traffic and pedestrian safety and awareness of school students, and is being aired on sundays, tuesdays, and thursdays at 7.50 AM on Amen FM, and through all schools morning announcement services in the regions covered by Amen FM's frequencies according to the agreement made with the ministry of education.

Getting into the week's main topic, talking about the Jordanian Universities radio stations and their role on campus and off campus in the surrounding community.

Currently, there are 2 working university radio stations, the 1st is “Radio New Ma'an – Voice of the south”, broadcasting from King Hussein Bin Talal's University in Ma'an ever since July 2006 on 90.3 FM, ever since there was only one station Jordanian FM station reaching Ma'ans area. While there are 3 stations aside Sawt Ma'an. About the station and its role, i had spoken with mr Basem Twesee, chief of research and society development center in King Hussein's university. Who had stated that this radio station is more of a community radio that a university radio, as its main objective is oriented towards the people of Maan and the local society, but the students are making a part of the radio station throughout specialized selection and training to be gradually more and more involved, and some are even professionals now. Radio New Ma'an is also not afraid of the competition, as Dr Basem thinks that getting more stations into the airwaves will even enrich and make their station more notable in the area due to its direct interaction with the public.
[the very interesting phone call recording attached]

The 2nd radio station of this kind to go on was Yarmouk FM, which started broadcasting for a couple of hours daily starting October 2006, and extended it broadcasting to 24/7 later in October 2007. This station's efforts come from the college of media and journalism in the university (ever since it was a dept part of another college), as most of the workers in it are students of this college. The role of this radio station also exceeded the limits of being a university radio station to being a community radio for the city of irbid and its people. Especially since there are another 15 radio stations that have working frequencies in Irbid or in Ajloun covering Irbid's area, thats beside 10s of radio stations being receipted from neighboring countries, making ibrid's airwaves one of the most jammed airwaves of the kingdom.

On the way also as mentioned in a previous episode are a couple of university radio stations that got broadcasting licenses, one is for Mutah University in Karak, a city that has only 1 radio station having a working frequency in it, that is, Fann FM on 94.3 FM, and also receives the broadcasting of several stations from their working frequencies in Amman, but in a mainly weak reception and a varying one depending on the area. The other one is University of Jordan, which will be competing on the ammani airwaves with 10s of radio stations of all kinds. On this radio station i have spoken to Dr Darweesh Badran, one of the people that are participating in establishing this radio station. Dr Badran has stated that the idea behind this stations was enriching the relation between the university and its students, as well as the university and the surrounding community, noting that this station will be a pure “students' radio station”, also, as Mr Badran answered on one of my questions, that the radio station can be one that would interact and represent students from other universities and colleges and not only UJ, as there are several universities and colleges in Amman, the area that this radio station will be covering. Last but not least, Dr Badran stated that they have already several suggestions for programs and cooperations offered to them from students as well as from people in the private sector for their radio station.
[phone call recording attached]

Its very obvious that university radio stations in jordan are taking away of being apart from each other, so we are not seeing one station based on cooperation between several radio stations, and not even partial cooperation, of having for example one radio station with one identity and license but with customized shows for each and every area.

One interesting notice is also that those radio stations are exceeding their university boundaries to be community radio stations. Having priorities and concentration on their community role.

Last but not least comes the observation that the private sector is not participating in investing or cooperating with those radio stations, like some big broadcasting corporation in some European countries that took the role of supporting students radio stations and investing in them in their countries.

Thanks to the guys at Modern Media Co, specifically Mrs Ghada Odeh for her cooperation. Remember that you can contribute too, and send in your comments, feedback and any radio observations on radio@ammannet.net

and note that this segment is being replayed Wednesdays at 4 PM now, beside the basic airplay time, Mondays at 10.30 AM.

My Matryoshka Collection, and that deep relation!

2009-02-05T08:52:00.001+02:00

Being half romanian, and eastern european in general, brings me a deep inner relation with several items, locations, and traditions from that area.

A Matryoshka doll, a Babushka doll or a Russian nested doll, also called a stacking doll, is a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other. "Matryoshka" (Матрёшка) is a derivative of the Russian female first name "Matryona", which was a very popular name among peasants in old Russia. The name "Matryona" in turn is related to the Latin root, "mater" and means Mother. So the name is closely connected with motherhood and in turn the doll has come to symbolize fertility. [source Wikipedia]

One of them is my Matryoshka dolls collection that i have started less than a couple of years ago, and which are well known souvenir items in eastern european countries. and though I only started this collection less than 2 years ago, i have all of those already :)

The 1st one in the collection was the blue one, which i got from prague a year and a half ago. which was followed by the one to the right from Accessorize (Made in China of course), and was presented by them as a Christmas decoration apparently, just like the other one from them as well. While the other 2 are heavy original ones :D from Russia, and from the Ukraine, and not only that the one from Ukraine was a gift from my dear half Ukrainian friend and ex-colleague Diana, put its full of passion ever since the manufacturing! That is made obvious by a touch from the lady who made it and painted it, leaving a hair of her with the painting :) another fact that makes this one very special to me :)

Apparently, and Unfortunately, i still don't have any of those dolls from romania (hint hint: They are toooooo expensive in romania, those romanian bastards), but will hopefully add one or two from there this year :)

Its also worth mentioning, that if you read that Wikipedia article, you will find out that this dolls was inspired by a souvenir dolls from Japan in the late 19th century.

UPDATE:
My Matryoshka collection has been updated , with a new romanian collection this time :) a must have , isn't it!

Its the Green one to the left in the photo

My Radio Segment, Episode 5

2009-02-03T12:30:00.002+02:00

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

In this week's episode, i started with an overview of the radio stations interaction with the occasion of His Majesty, King Abdullah the 2nd's birthday.

Starting with Radio Jordan Broadcasting Corporation, which has covered this occasion through all of its working radio stations, the General Public Radio, The English Service, and Amman FM, with special segments talking about his majesty's life and achievements, as well as playing national songs, even during some periods and shows on the English service.

Radio Amen FM as well had special documentary shows for this occasion talking about his majesty's life, mixing those shows, which were mainly long with national music as usual on this station's airwaves.

A notable interaction also with this occasion was heard on Radio Sawt Al-Madina, this started on the Thursday, 29-1-2009's morning show with Dia'a Al-Awaishe, where she dedicated her morning show for this occasion, including interviews and discussions with citizens and personalities that had interacted with his majesty's achievements and development plans during the past years. This station has also dedicated the entire day of saturday 31-1-2009 for this occasion, entitling that as “King Abdullah the 2nd, The Human King”. That is beside a short 15 min documentary about his majesty's life, and broadcasting it during the past weekend.

On the other hand, Radio Fann FM, also had a notable interaction with this occasion, and as usual, Radio Fann had a contribution in a new national song prepared for this occasion, and broadcasting it exclusively before all the other stations, starting Al-Wakeel's Thursday morning show, 29-1-2009. a show that was also partially dedicated for this occasion. Also, Fann FM had a live broadcasting for the celebration made by Mecca Mall for this event.

Other than those above, mentions for this occasion were heard on Radio Hawa Amman, Radio Farah Al-Nas, Sawt Al-Ghad, Mazaj FM, Ayyam FM, and Spin Jordan. And there wasn't any notable mention or interaction on the other stations.

On the Sector's news this week, Hayat FM started broadcasting in Irbid on 94.7 FM, but it seems still on test broadcasting.

Amen FM (The Police Dept Radio Station) has opened a public interaction office in Salt, in the City Hall in particular, in a new step for interacting with its listeners and receiving their notes and observations to be tackled and broadcasted on the station's Airwaves. This way of interaction for radio stations throughout Radio Shops or Radio Kiosks is available in several countries abroad either by public service radio stations like Amen FM, or commercial radio stations even to increase the interactivity and closeness to the stations fans.

Also on the sector's news, a decision has been taken by the Prime Ministry on Thursday 29-1-2009, to refuse the license for Radio “Zahret El-Ghor”, a non-political/non-news community women-agricultural radio station offered by Daoud Kuttab Company, the owner of Radio Al-Balad. The decision wasn't attached with any reasons.

In this week's episode i was planning to discuss the radio stations on the Jordanian Airwaves that do not have any radio shows or interaction with their listeners. Or what i personally like to call, The Mute Radio Stations. And which were 3 stations on the Jordanian airwaves, Ahlen FM on 97.1 FM, Melody FM on 91.1 FM in Amman and 105.5 FM in Zarqa, and Nojoum FM on 93.7 FM.
But unfortunately, the closure of Radio Ahlen FM by the end of last week after over 3.5 years of non stop western music, and only several shows bought from American broadcasting companies, and didn't have any interaction with its listeners, nor any position in the advertisement market.

While Nojoum FM, broadcasting on 93.7 FM in Amman area, and which since it started in July 2007 until now didn't identify its name on its airwaves, but those of you who have an RDS radio can mention the radio station's name on your Radio screen. This station is owned by Al-Dawood group for trade and investment, and is still until now in a test transmission mode with non-stop Arabic music.

Melody FM which has been for over 2 years now on the Jordanian airwaves, and which play's the latest Arabic and western hits on its airwaves, and without having any notable shows on its airwaves, I have spoked on this subject and more with Mr Hadi Antar, CEO of the Jordanian Radio & TV Company – Melody Jordan. [phone call attached], who stated in this phone call that Melody FM will be very soon starting its live radio shows later this year and they are currently working on it. As well as the relation of their radio investment, which is also available in 2 another stations in Beirut and Syria, with their TV stations. The discussions also included a question of how are they interacting with their listeners and getting feedback from them since they still don't have any live shows or live means of communication with their listeners. Listen the show for the answers ;)

Remember that you can contribute too, and send in your comments, feedback and any radio observations on radio@ammannet.net

and note that this segment is being replayed Wednesdays at 4 PM now, beside the basic airplay time, Mondays at 10.30 AM.

Radio Guide Update: Ahlen FM goes OFF

2009-02-01T08:13:00.003+02:00

Finally, the most suspicious and "mute" radio station on the Jordanian airwaves, has went OFF! Ahlen FM is not on our airwaves any more.

Ever since this station went on, in May 2005, it didn't have any sense on the jordanian airwaves, except the non stop western music it was playing, and some recorded shows bought from American Radio Production companies. well, maybe with some added value, by having an RDS service showing us the song and singer titles. But indeed with alot of "going crazy" several times, including just 10 days ago. All associated with the lowest rating in the jordanian radio sphere.

No commercials were being aired on this station's airwaves, well, at least i heard only 1 ad once upon a time, and thats it!

This station, owned by "Al-Dekka Broadcasting Technology", had alot of rumors and suspensions roaming around it and its turkish owners. imagine, the price of licensing, instruments, and constant electricity costs. Just like that, for nothing for almost 4 years.

I still don't know the story behind this station going off air yet, was it sold with the license, was it stopped by it owners, or by the AVC, nothing yet in my pocket. But whatever that was, Yes, we can say that the jordanian airwaves started being competitive enough to kick some people out of the game.

97.1 FM is now clear!

My Radio Segment, Episode 4

2009-01-27T13:03:00.002+02:00

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

In this week's episode, i started with 2 worth-to-mention radio activities that made an obvious effort in supporting the people in Gaza, especially since i was talking last week about the CHR radios and the big rate of competition between them in all fields. The competition between them “human-wise” reached its peak this week, other than the regular calls for donations being aired on their airwaves.

The 1st one was Play 99.6's charity concert, Gaza Calling, featuring several Jordanian and Palestinian artists. Which was held on Saturday the 17-1-2009, and which i have told you about in details 2 weeks ago in my 2nd episode. The outcome of this charity concert was a successful 11,000 JD of donations, that went through the Jordan River Foundation's campaign for helping the people of Gaza. This one by Play 99.6 was probably the biggest campaign or act from any Jordanian radio station for supporting the people in Gaza, 11000 JD is really a success, and worths much more than a thousand news bulletin or a thousand hours of repeatable talking about Gaza, for its people and solving the conditions they have reached.

While the 2nd act was Spin Jordan's Musical Documentary about Gaza, which was aired on Tuesday 20-1-2009. Yes, a Musical Documentary, we might have never heard such a production on the Jordanian airwaves before.
This show was pretty well prepared and attractive, not only interesting in its way of discussing and tackling what happened in Gaza through Jordanian and Palestinian artists and their music discussing the situation out there, especially the Arabic & English rap and hip hop tracks they have created about this situation. But also in the notable quality of production. Its also worth mentioning that some of the artists featured in this documentary were featured in Play FM's charity concert.
The documentary included interviews and discussions with those artists, as well as tracks by them for this cause, and their opinion about how their music can affect this cause.

And maybe this is the 1st time we ever such a kind of Arabic revolutionary/national music, one in both Arabic and English, of the hip-hop style, on the Jordanian airwaves, on either Arabic or English speaking radio stations.

In the show, I have made a combination of about 6 minutes out of Spin's Documentary of 30 minutes, you can hear that by downloading the show and listening to it.

Back to what we heard on the Jordanian airwaves during last week.

On Radio Al-Balad, and during the evening news bulletin on Saturday 17-1-2009, the microphone fell down in the middle of the bulletin on the airwaves, which was presented by colleagues Hamze Soud and Dana Jebreel, which was Dana's 1st ever bulletin on the airwaves even. [sound clip attached].

Another troubler microphone was the one on Spin Jordan, on Tuesday 20-1-2009's morning show with Leena Ghanem, where she has forgotten her microphone ON and running without even lowering the level of its sound while playing a track after she finished talking. Apparently, Leena was talking on the phone with someone, and everything she was saying was going on the airwaves over the song, all of this, at 7.40 AM of that day.

Not only the microphones caused trouble on the airwaves last week, but broadcasting workstations too, as on Radio Farah Al-Nas on Thursday 22-1-2009, instead of having the jingle that was to announce Al-3aser (Afternoon) prayers in Amman Greater Area at 3 PM that day, another similar jingle announcing Al-Fajir (Dawn) Prayers went on the airwaves.

Last but not least, the results of the “Radio Stars Questionnaire” made by Addustour newspaper's youth section were announced in a special ceremony on Saturday 17-1-2009, and the results of this electronic voting campaign came as follows:
Best Jordanian Radio Stations:
1- Radio Fann FM
2- Radio Rotana
3- Radio Sawt Al-Ghad

Best Radio Show:
1- Besara7a with Al-Wakeel on Radio Fann
2- Wenta Mrawwe7, with Mazen Diab on Sawt Al-Ghad
3- 3a Daw El-2ama, with Omar Azzam on Watan FM
AND Shabab 3al FM with Hazem Thaljee on Radio Al-Balad.

Best Radio Announcer (Female):
1- Jessy Abu Faisal, Sawt Al-Ghad.
2- Dezereh Bsaibes, Radio Fann.
3- Randa Karadshe, Mazaj FM.

Best Radio Announcer (Male):
1- Mohammad Al-Wakeel, Radio Fann.
2- Necola Dagher, Radio Rotana. AND, Mazen Diab, Sawt Al-Ghad.
3- Esam Al-Omaree, Amen FM.

Remember that you can contribute too, and send in your comments, feedback and any radio observations on radio@ammannet.net

and note that this segment is being replayed Wednesdays at 4 PM now, beside the basic airplay time, Mondays at 10.30 AM.

Radio Guide Update: Hayat FM now in Irbid on 94.7 FM

2009-01-27T08:31:00.002+02:00

Hayat FM started broadcasting in Irbid on 94.7 FM.

This is Hayat FM's 1st frequency outside the one in Amman, which also covers zarqa, madaba and the surrounding areas.

Remember that for all the working frequencies on the jordanian airwaves you can also check: www.JordanRadioGuide.com

My Radio Segment, Episode 3

2009-01-24T15:00:00.000+02:00

As promised, this Week's episode got some improvements (Production-Wise), as well as a discussion about CHR Stations in Jordan.

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon.

Here is what occurred on the airwaves during the past week:
Starting Tuesday 13-1-2009, the day when news were being spread the fake news of a shooting incident from the Jordanian side has occurred on an Israeli patrol in Wadi Araba. This news hit the radios first on Radio Al-Balad and Hayat FM around 9.30 AM, where Radio Al-Balad broadcasted it at the beginning of its news headlines at 9.30 as a brief news, and preferred not going into more discussion or details until getting more accurate information. While Hayat FM has allocated part of her morning show for this piece of news, and was broadcasting the details directly from Al-Jazeera TV, but tried in controlling the public's comments and interaction regarding it until having an official statement about it.
The Other news-broadcasting radio stations didn't broadcast it on its news bulletins until releasing the official statement from the head of the Jordanian Armed Forces, so we heard this statement 1st on Radio Amen FM and Radio Fann FM, which declined the roomer news, and then the statement followed to appear on the other radio stations, but everyone was broadcasting it like it is, and probably only Radio Al-Balad cared about broadcasting and reporting the series of actions.

In continuity to the public interaction with what's happening in Gaza, Wednesday the 14th's edition of the afternoon show on Mazaj FM, “3al tareeq”, discussed the calls for boycotting the US Products, brands, and restaurants, and the related activism lately in the occasion of what's going on in Gaza. This topic received a lot of feedback and interaction from the listeners throughout the phones calls, emails, and SMSes. And the show's host, Randa Karadshe, had a smart way of reacting among the callers trying to name some brands.
Also in this show, there has been a “minute of silence” on the airwaves of Mazaj FM, after one of the callers suggested that, and the other listeners as well as the show host reacted positively among the idea.

Last but not least, On Beat FM's morning show, “The Beat Breakfast”, on Wednesday the 14th, and while the show host was talking about computer viruses, it seems he got an attack by one of them on the air, causing him some trouble, that he managed to recover rapidly with high skills [recording attached].

As declared in last week's show, this week i'd be discussing CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) stations in Jordan, also known as Hit Music stations.

This genre of stations that puts on its airwaves the latest western musical hits, was one of the 1st genres being developed on the Jordanian airwaves by private media companies. As Play 99.6 started broadcasting in 2004, followed right at the beginning of 2005 by Beat FM. That is until 2008, when we witnessed the opening of Energy FM and Spin Jordan. Having as a result, 4 CHR stations in Jordan, all targeting the young generation until the 30s in age. And most if not all the music being aired on their airwaves are western music in English, and the spoken language on their airwaves is also English, and its pretty rare to hear Arabic on their airwaves despite the fact that those are Jordanian Stations owned by Jordanian Companies, and most of the people working in them are Jordanian.

[Details about the station owners available in the episode's recording]

Those 4 CHR stations are hot on fire when it comes to competition, and much more than the ones between Arabic stations in the sector. A competition that starts from the latest music the play, but continues to shows, prizes, and all sort of creative events and campaigns that exceed the limits of the small studio from which they broadcast. That is obvious that much that one of those stations, Play 99.6, got an international reward back in 2007 from the NAB, gaining the international excellency broadcasting award from the NAB.

All of this, despite the fact that, according to statistics, those stations' ratings are the lowest in Jordan in general! But maybe because the people behind CHR stations are more “skilled” and “business-maniacs”, especially since some of them got international experiences. And because we are not really finding this competition in other radio genres in Jordan, nonetheless Arabic ones. The competition between them is so obvious.

I've did lately some monitoring for the airwaves of those stations and prepared a small study about whats going on their airwaves, with 2 sample time-frames, one PEAK time between 8-8.45 AM on a working day, during the morning shows, and one OFF PEAK, in a Saturday between 2-3 PM.

The study in details is available here

General findings of the study were as follows:

Play 99.6 is still the dominant when it comes to advertisements, with around 60% of the market, followed by Beat FM with around 30%. While no notable ads are being aired on the airwaves of the newer Energy FM and Spin FM, especially when there aren't live shows on the airwaves.

While when it comes to the music being played, and since CHR is all about hit music, the story is opposite! Because the new radio stations that opened in 2008, are notably winning! As they are trying to attract the listeners and getting a larger share in the market, Energy FM for example appeared according to this study to have 79% of its airplay consisting of fresh new music on, and no single track from what was monitored was from before 2008. While Spin FM had more variety in the music, as it featured older tracks as well, but with a high rate of fresh music, and with close percentages to those of Beat FM, which has a bigger concentration of fresh new music during peak hours. But Play 99.6 is not playing that much new music on its airwaves, as the percentage of fresh new music, according to the study, does not exceed 45%. Now some people in the sector have an opinion about that, that people are more likely willing to hear music that they know, more than the fresh new music. And maybe its a strategy from Play 99.6 to keep its listeners in this competition. Also, one notable thing, is that the only Jordanian track that went on the airwaves of the 4 radio stations was one on Play 99.6, and this stations is known for its support of local talents singing in English.

Last but not least, it was obvious that Beat FM and Play 99.6 are probably just the right balance when it comes to talking on the airwaves, and this shows the professionalism and high preparation of their shows' hosts. While during the 45 monitored minutes on Energy FM's morning show, there was 14.5 minutes of talk! Which is almost the third. On the other hand, Spin Jordan was the only station where the hosts speak Arabic from time to time, even though mixed in English, and they even have some jingles in Arabic playing on their airwaves [Recording attached].

Its worth mentioning by the end of this episode, that many thanks go for the guys at Beat FM, specifically Mr Raad Kawar, that has cooperated positively and supplied us with the Beat FM recording.

Remember that you can contribute too, and send in your comments, feedback and any radio observations on radio@ammannet.net

and note that this segment is being replayed Wednesdays at 4 PM now, beside the basic airplay time, Mondays at 10.30 AM.

Two Countries, One Soul – A Photo Gallery

2009-01-21T15:57:00.001+02:00

The Jordanian Romanian Forum for Culture

(JRFC)

Warmly invites you to an eye capturing experience

Two Countries, One Soul – A Photo Gallery

Photos from Jordan and Romania, featuring The special guest and Jordanian Photographer: Ehab Othman

Opening: Wednesday the 21st of January 2009 at 18:30

Mecca mall – Ground Floor- The extension.
Wednesday the 21st , Thursday the 22nd and Friday the 23rd of January 2009

Sponsored by:
Mecca Mall
Ashab Advertising
Abu Mahjoob Creative Products
Jordanian Youth Creativity Forum

JEA's laziness campaign will not support Gaza!

2009-01-19T08:48:00.001+02:00

The Jordanian Engineers Association (JEA) has been announcing in the local newspapers and through SMSes to its members to have a 1 hour of no work between the hours of 12-1 PM, as solidarity for Gaza! as they call it!

How will laziness support Gaza!!!!!!!!!
Everything can be a support for Gaza except for this! since when being lazy and not working became a way to win a war! or to support the people of Gaza!

Stupid!

CHR Radio in Jordan, What you Hear is what you Get!

2009-01-15T14:11:00.007+02:00

I've wanted to do this “tiny self-study” while ago, and finally I was able to do, especially with the fact that i started my radio segment lately :)

CHR Stations in Jordan (standing for: Contemporary Hit Radio) are probably representing the biggest competition rate in the Jordanian radio sphere at the time being. Being currently 4 radio stations, CHRs are notably competing with everything from shows to bringing in the hottest western hit music for the Jordanian listeners, And from coming up with all sorts of creative event ideas, to bringing in the biggest competitions and prices for its listeners.

All of this, despite the fact that, according to statistics, those stations' ratings are the lowest in Jordan in general, since most of the population prefers to listen to Arabic music, or no music at all even! But maybe because we are not really finding this competition in other radio genres in Jordan, nonetheless Arabic ones. And maybe because those people behind CHR stations are more “skilled” and “business-maniacs”, this competition is hot out there.

[more about CHR stations in Jordan will be discussed on Episode 3 of My Radio Segment, next monday 10,30 PM on Radio Al-Balad 92.4 FM]

So, what I did was that i've chosen random times, random dates, and gave a listen to all 4 CHR stations, documenting all that went on air in those selected time-frames: Tracks, Promos, Ads, and talk!

2 main sample time frames where studied, one OFF PEAK (same date and time for all 4 stations), and one PEAK (same time, but different dates among the 4 radio stations).

General Notes:

Promotions and jingles are stated with the word [PROMO]
Unknown artists are stated with [N/A] followed by the title of the song, or part of its lyrics between double quotes in case i was not able to know the song title.
Fresh new hits are colored in Blue
Older Hits from 2008 are colored in Green
Older hits from before 2008 are colored in Red, and much more older ones are colored in light red.

Sample 1:

Saturday: 27-12-2008

Between the hours of 14:05-15:05

Period status: Non Peak Hour / No shows / Weekend

In this grid, in between most (if not all) the songs, an identification jingle was aired. Those are not mentioned in this grid.

Energy FM	Spin FM	Beat FM	Play FM
The Script – Break Even	Rihanna – Its Over Now	Jes – Imagination	Wrap up for the play top 40 of the year + [PROMO]
			Madcon – Begging
N/A - “I wanna say i'm sorry, don't wanna say goodbye”	Fedde Le Grande – Put your hands up for detroit	Maroon 5 – This Love	N/A - “day & night”
Jay Sean - Tonight	Kings of Leon – Loose somebody	Hinder – Without you	Daughtery – Its not over
Rihanna – Disturbia	One republic – Stop and Stare	Kanye West – Heartless	David Deejay – Sexy thing
Katy perry – Hot & Cold	Taylor swift – You Belong with me	Kevin Rudolf – Let it rock	Ne Yo - Closer
Estelle feat. Sean Paul – Come Over	Toni Braxton – Wasn't a man enough for me	Simple Plan – Untitled	Linkin Park – in the end
Coldplay – Viva la Vida	Second hand Serenade – Fall for you	Jessica and Ashly Simpson - The Little Drummer Boy	David Guetta – Love is gone
Flo Rida - Low	Nelly Fortado – I'm like a bird	Enrique – Escape	Beyonce – Like a boy
Metro station – Shake it	MGMT – Kids	Freemasons (Feat. Bailey Tzuke) – Uninvited	Fedde Le Grande – Put your hands up for detroit
Voodoo feat. Sirano – Trans Atlantic flow	N/A - “that was a turning point”	(2) Advertisements + [PROMO]s	Nickleback – Rockstar
N/A - “What a feeling, nothing but a lie”	N/A - “told you how it used to be”	R.I.O. - Shine On	(4) Advertisements + [PROMO]s
Kaskade – Move for me	Leona Lewis – Run	Nickleback – Got to be somebody	Rihanna – Live your Life
Will I Am – Its a new day	Kanye West – Home Coming	Cherish - Killa	Akon – Na na
Will I Am – I've been thinking about you	Jesse McCartney - Its over	Shaggy – Feel the Rush	Chris Brown – With you
Antique - Moro Mou	Jack Jonson – Cocoon	Jay Sean - Tonight	(3) Advertisements + [PROMO]s
Lil' Wayne – Lollipop	Mariah Cary – Touch my Body	Ian Carey – Redlight	ATB – Till I come
N/A - “You can't get enough, keep up pumpin'”	The Script – Break Even	Albert Neve & David Oleart - I'm Alive	Armin Van Burren - In and Out of love
		Three Days Grace - Never Too Late

Sample 2:

Period status: Peak hour / Morning shows / Weekdays

Time: Mainly between 8:00 – 8:45 AM

Dates Specified on each station

Beat FM	Spin FM
30 – 12 – 2008 8:00 – 8:45 AM	30 – 12 – 2008 7:59 – 8:45 AM
David Deejay – Sexy Thing	[PROMO] + (1) Advertisements
[PROMO]	On Air Talking (2m)
Dido – Don't Believe in Love	The Script – Break Even
[PROMO]	[PROMO]
On Air Talking (1m)	Ne Yo – Closer
Kanye West – Love Locked Down	On Air Talking (0m 40s)
On Air Talking (3m) + (1) Sponsor Advertisements	The whosiers – Goodbye Mister
(1) Advertisements + Promo	[PROMO]
Nickleback – Got to be somebody	Kanye West - Heartless
On Air Talking (0m 30s)	On Air Talking (1m)
Enrique – Taking back My Love	Milo – Drop in pressure
[PROMO]	On Air Talking (0m 20s)
Craig David – Unbelievable	The Johnas Brothers - “”
On Air Talking (2m)	[PROMO]
Robbie Williams (Close My Eyes)	Madcon – Begging
On Air Talking (3m)	On Air Talking (0m 50s)
(2) Advertisements + Promo	Lady gaga – Just Dance
Britney Spears - Womenizer	On Air Talking (0m 30s)
[PROMO]	[PROMO]
On Air Talking (1m)	Rihanna – Live your life
T Brothers beat – Pennies , Henny, & Bitties	On Air Talking (1m)
	Shantel – T Shirt

Play 99.6	Energy 97.7 FM
31 – 12 – 2008 7:56 – 8:45 AM	5 – 1 – 2009 8:00 – 8:45 AM
On Air Talking (0m 50s)	[PROMO]
Nickleback – Got to be somebody	On Air Talking (1m)
On Air Talking (1m 10s)	Rihanna – Live your Life
Katy Perry – Hot & Cold	On Air Talking (2m 30s) + (2) sponsor advertisements
On Air Talking (0m 40s)	Goo loo josh Project – Infinity
Ian Carry - Rise	[PROMO]
(1) Advertisements + Promo + (1) Sponsor skit	Beyonce – All the single ladies
Modjo - Lady	On Air Talking (2m)
On Air Talking (2m 20s)	Voodoo & Serano – Trans Atlantic Flow
Rihanna – Live your life	On Air Talking (2m 20s)
On Air Talking (1m)	[PROMO]
(3) Advertisements + several Promos	The Killers – Human
On Air Talking (1m)	On Air Talking (0m 20s)
The Script – Break Even	Christina Agulera – Keeps getting better
[PROMO]	On Air Talking (4m) including a live phone call
Timberland – The way I are	Craig David – Insomnia
On Air Talking (1m)	[PROMO]
Dj Flava Vs Stefani – Beautiful Lie (A Jordanian Song)	Britney Spears - Circus
On Air Talking (1m 40s)	On Air Talking (2m 30s)
September – Cry for you	[PROMO]
[PROMO]	Akon - Beautiful
Kevin Rudolf – Let it rock	Paul Van Dyk feat Jessica – White Lies

General Findings and observations (Despite the fact that this is not a “scientific research” to have accurate enough numbers, but according my listening experience, thats the situation in general on the CHR airwaves):

	Energy 97.7 FM	Spin Jordan	Beat FM	Play 99.6
Nr of Advertisements (Non Peak hour sample)	0	0	2	7
Nr of Advertisements (Peak hour sample)	0 + 2 sponsor	1	3 + 1 sponsor	4 + 1 sponsor
Talking time	14m 40s	6m 20s	9m 30s	9m 40s
Percentage of Fresh Music (Non Peak hour sample)	70%	64%	45% (But most of the other are labeled in Green)	33%
Percentage of Fresh Music (Peak hour sample)	90%	80%	88.8%	60%
Percentage of Fresh music (All)	79%	70%	58%	44%

Maybe its too clear that 3 out of the 4 radio stations are beating hardly on getting the latest and hottest hits, while Play 99.6 is out of this competition at the time being! Mention that even the fresh songs being played on Play 99.6 at the time being are not premiers, and have been playing on other stations for at least 1 month (A good example is The Script's – “Break Even”, and Play's claim to remember where we heard it 1^st while its been on the other 3 station's airplay for 2 months or more [More was in this week's episode of my radio segment] ). While Energy 97.7 FM are jamming the airwaves with a big quantity of hits, and almost no before 2008 songs at all!

Despite this fact, Play 99.6 is still the dominant when it comes to advertisements, with around 60% of the market, followed by Beat FM with around 30%. While no notable ads are being aired on the airwaves of the newer Energy FM and Spin FM, despite the fact that Energy for Example is there for almost a year now!

Talk-wise during the shows at the peak hour sample, Beat FM and Play 99.6 are probably just the right balance, while on Spin Jordan things are bit more silent despite announcement for ways to support people in gaza where being aired as well when taking the sample, talk on Spin Jordan is actually more of a direct one. On the other hand, Energy FM's Martin B spent almost 30% of the time during the taken sample, though he no announcement regarding supporting gaza went on air, and though the last 2 songs of the sample were part of the so-called “no talk triple play” on Energy FM, when there is no talk at all between 3 songs in a row.

Back to the music according to the grids above, and according to my personal “listener” mentions as well, you will be able to mention that Beat FM plays un-popular tracks from time to time , though they might be new (actually, Thanks to the people from Beat FM who helped me in finding the names of alot of tracks from their playlist). While Spin Jordan has a bit of “over redundancy” for the fresh hits, that might not be observed in this study, but when you listen during weekdays to their series of shows from 7 AM – 7 PM.

On last notable thing, is that the only Jordanian track that went on the airwaves of the 4 radio stations was one on Play 99.6, which is known for its notable support for local talents all over those year by the way, the song appearing in the sample is called “Beautiful Lie” and its by “Dj Flava Vs Stefani”

So, let see what do you think of all the above, and what do you listeners think of CHR stations in Jordan in general.

My Radio Segment, Episode 2

2009-01-13T08:25:00.001+02:00

This week's episode is available for download HERE, and for listening on the listen icon. and Here are the contents of this episode:

The interactivity on the Jordanian airwaves with the crisis in Gaza has continued this week, without any major changes from the previous week.
Radio Jordan - English Service for example, has continued in broadcasting mellow and classical music, but in the periods when popular shows used to be on air, just like the program “Licenser's Choice” LC, the lines were open for the public to interact with the licenser's regarding whats happening in Gaza, also we have heard several times on the airwaves of this radio station, and at several times, even some Arabic revolutionary and national songs, which, unfortunately, were with quite bad sound quality.

On the other hand, all 3 radio stations operated by Seagulls Communication, specifically, Mazaj FM, Beat FM, and Mood FM, have started promoting for the Jordan River Foundation's campaign for helping the people in Gaza. That is, other than Aramex's campaign that I have mentioned and played in last week's episode. And which has been on most of the radio station's around, but unfortunately not all of them .... ! is it possible some radio stations asked for a charge for playing this announcement!

Play 99.6, is also organizing a music gig, for several Palestinian hiphop bands, that are known for their way musical way in tackling the Palestinian issues, as well as the Jordanian singer hummam ammari. The objective of this gig, as play is announcing is to donate all the money collected from the tickets for supporting people in gaza, also through the Jordan River foundation's campaign.

Play FM has is promoting for this event through its website, www.play.jo, and through several catchy promotions on its airwaves. But one of the interesting things is that I heard an announcement for this gig on Energy FM's “Morning Fix” show, mentioning the cause behind it, but definitely not that Play FM is organizing it. Also, on of the participating DJs in this gig is DJ Sout-u-Soura, who has a show on Beat FM. Despite the fact I didn't hear any announcements on Beat FM about this gig, but having Beat FM allowing one of their DJs in such an event organized by their competitor, Play FM, for such a cause and in such situations is indeed something out of the ordinary war of competition between those radio stations.

In the coverage of the public interaction with what's happening in Gaza, Radio Al-Balad has continued its “Quality” coverage, something that is said not only by me in this show, but Also by BBC Arabic, in their show “BBC Extra”, which dedicated part of this week's show about Radio Al-Balad's extra ordinary coverage for the crisis in gaza and the public interaction with it.

Last Friday, 9-1-2009, for example, Radio Al-Balad started a detailed Live coverage for the public activities and marches around town, and dedicated a big part of this coverage for the big demonstration in Rabieh, which started from a news bulletin that turned into a live coverage for over a couple of hours, and was objective enough to report the events at location through their representative, as well as a lot of phone calls with the media announcer of the anti-rebel police dept (Darak Forces), and other people and eye-witnesses at location, and even some reporters from other media outlets available on location. And thus had the responsibility to show the picture at location for the listeners neutrally as it is, and from all the point of view. That is beside covering other marches and demonstrations in other locations as well.

While Hayat FM for example, had a different kind of coverage on the same day, and was more political oriented, by only covering the speech ceremony held by the islamic brotherhood party, and there was no other coverage for other events. But, Hayat FM had held an event it self 1 day before, by organizing a demonstration for kids from their offices to the UNICEF offices in Tla3 Al-Ali area, and promoted for it through its airwaves.

On the sector news, both University of Jordan and Mutah University had each obtained a license from the AVC for having their own radio stations. Just like the radio stations already running in Yarmouk University and in Ma'an's King Hussein University. No further details yet about those radio stations, or their frequencies or programs, and i promise i will be dedicating an episode soon about those university radio stations.

With the beginning of 2009, i have mentioned some changes in the programs over the airwaves. Radio Al-Balad for example started a new shows grid, by doing some changes in some existing shows, like “3asrieh” which is now more politically oriented, and “Eye on Media” out of which this segment now takes part, along with 2 other segments on Newspapers and news-websites. As well as introducing several new shows, just like “Kolna Bne2dar”, “Kolna zai ba3ad”, “sport files”, a return for the program “7aggee”, “atheer al qawafi”, “Musica men el sharq”... and continuity for the regular other shows on the airwaves, and their interaction with the listener's.

Also, we got surprised on Sunday 4-1-2009 on Spin Jordan, which is just around 3 months old on the airwaves, with a reshuffle for the hosts of their shows, so that the morning show presenter “Tamer Bataineh” is now on the afternoon show called “The Zoo Crew”, and Lena Ghanem was moved from there to the morning show in return.

Beat FM, started airing a promo for its achievements in 2008, promising that the year 2009 will be as their motto, “Bigger, Better, Bolder”, but with no changes on the shows or any new shows, until now.

Also, seem Radio Sawt Al-Madina is planning some new stuff for the new year, but until now, i didn't hear anything but a comedy segment which Radio Sawt Al-Madina has co-produced with those from the comics website, 3alarasi.com

Last but not least, we heard some amusing stuff on the airwaves of Jordanian radios during the last week. On Saturday 3-1-2009 on Radio Al-Balad, specifically on the evening news and while talking on air through the phone to a certain individual, he started thanking Radio Sawt Al-Madina instead of Radio Al-Balad, while he was Live on the airwaves of Radio Al-Balad. (sound clip attached).

While on Energy FM's Morning Fix, those people behind the program, has introduced a new segment on Sunday 4-1-2009, which we actually used to hear it on Play 99.6 a while ago, by allowing school students and interacting with them speaking about their schools, classes or teachers on the airwaves. Unfortunately, seems those behind the idea has forgotten that currently, the schools are either in their med-year vacation, or just wrapping up the final exams.

Finally, on Play 99.6, also on the morning show, Lee McGrath has played us a song, The Script's latest – Break Even, claiming its new and will be big in 2009, and to remember where we heard it 1st .... while this track has been playing all over the other CHR radio stations for over a couple of months even! (sound clip attached)

Next week, hopefully, we will get to know more about CHR Radios in Jordan, and the definition of this format of Radio stations and a detailed discussion about them. So tune in next monday on 92.4 FM starting 10.30 AM, or through www.ammannet.net, for this and more.

Remember you can send in your comments, feedback and any radio observations on radio@ammannet.net

Russians seem to be interested in attracting us! Media Wise

2009-01-12T15:05:00.004+02:00

The new russian TV, Russia Today, seem to be really interested in the arabic public, and specifically the jordanian, and attracting them to their arabic channel that has been on the air for several months now.

The station has been advertising in local newspapers, and last week i've mentioned they installed this booth in City Mall, where they even have some young girls, "Not Russian, nor half russian ... Unfortunately ;)" trying "with not even half of the russian dare-full-ness" to let the people know more about the channel.

I've never seen until now such a direct promotion for any TV station in jordan, yet. What do you think about it. Russian's Are Rush-in or what :)

My Radio Segment, Episode 1

2009-01-05T13:06:00.006+02:00

This is the 1st episode of My Radio segment within “Eye on Media” which is being aired on Radio Al-Balad 92.4 FM.

Excuse me for being kind of boring in my first episode, due to emotions as well as the flue, i will make sure it would get better on the next episodes.

For the 1st episode, i am discussing the interaction of Jordanian radio stations with the situation in Gaza, and here goes the details, noting that the audio recording for the show is available for listening on the green icon, and for download here. My Segment is by the end of the show:

Starting with Saturday the 27th of December 2008, one of the 1st days of the attack on Gaza. Radio Jordan Broadcasting Corporation stopped the transmission on Radio Amman FM on all its frequencies, and united its transmission with the Main Program of Radio Jordan Broadcasting. Where extensive coverage and news bulletins for the situation on Gaza was taking place on air. Also, Radio Jordan – English and French service stopped their regular programs, and was playing only soft and classical music, along with the regular news headlines and bulletins each and every hour.

On the other hand, Radio Al-Balad 92.4 had a continuous open wave coverage for the situation in Gaza, and was playing revolutionary national music. Hayat FM also had a continuous news coverage for the situation in Gaza, and had also a different coverage including interaction with different political and social personalities and their opinion on the situation, and even a phone call with his majesty's media adviser, Mr Ayman Al-Safadi. Also, one of the different things in Hayat FM's coverage was the fact it was announcing the places and times of demonstrations, a thing that points out the public interaction with this radio station among those activities.

And all the radio stations with news licenses where covering the situation, including the Arabic service of the BBC, which also had a continuous coverage for the event, and even on the headlines level at some stations, like Sawt Al-Madina, which had rapid, short, yet rich headlines covering the events in Gaza.

Staying on the same day, we have witnessed a strange case on Mazaj FM, which had its transmission going off between the hours of 6.30- 8.30 PM (approx). Some people thought it was an intension from Mazaj FM to stop the transmission because of what is going on in Gaza, but later i have received the information that the problem was just due to a failure in the fiber-optics connection between the studio and the transmission tower.

On Sunday,December 28th, the day has started in a different way with the morning shows on most of the radio stations around town, especially the popular morning show, “Besaraha with Al-Wakeel” on Radio Fann, which was involved pretty much with the situation in Gaza. This involvement on those shows also continued in the next days with the same rhythm.
Also on sunday, The Quran Radio – Irbid branch, broadcasted prayers and verses from the holy quran picked especially for this occasion to pray for the “shohada2” who passed away in Gaza, in the afternoon through the evening period.

An interaction with the situation also appeared from the radio stations mentioning their withdrawal from the new year's parties they were supporting and sponsoring. The 1st to announce this was Spin Jordan and Ayyam FM, which had also the parties they were supporting and sponsoring stopped after this withdrawal as well. Also, the Party held in Le Royal and sponsored by Fann FM was canceled on this occasion, and the only remaining party that continued as scheduled and kept sponsored by a radio station was Sawt Al-ghad's, which was held at the Holiday Inn. The issue of the new year's parties being canceled or not was also discussed Live on the airwaves of Hayat FM, and opened the airwaves for the public to interaction with this issue.

The stations in General promoted for gathering donation items, blood donations, and support for the people in Gaza. This started ever since Monday and Tuesday. Most of the western radio stations for example, namely: Play FM, Beat FM, Mood FM, Spin Jordan, where announcing the campaign by 7iber.com, the Jordan River Foundation's campaign, and blood donation campaigns. Some stations also canceled the special programs scheduled for new year's eve on their airwaves, those were namely: Play FM and Radio Sawt Al-Madina. And on Radio Sawt Al-Madina also for example, one of the dynamic and entertaining shows, “Nharak Sa3eed” had changed into a show that interacts with the listeners regarding the situation in Gaza and with national songs being played on air.

Last but not least, an announcement by Aramex for collecting donations for gaza was an interesting one to be heard on absolutely all the radio stations in both Arabic and English. Noting that no radio station requested any fees from aramex for announcing this Advertisement on their airwaves.

Thats all for this week,
Remember, for any suggestions or feedback, or if you hear anything unusual on the radio, on any radio station, tell us right away by email that to:
radio@ammannet.net

My own Radio Show segment on Radio Al-Balad 92.4 FM

2008-12-31T14:05:00.007+02:00

I will be starting my own radio show segments by the beginning of 2009, where I'd be talking about the Jordanian Radio-sphere on weekly basis! Covering all the latest in the Jordanian radio scene, frequency updates, coverages, and what's hot and what's not on the Jordanian radio stations regardless of their genre and orientation.

The segments, will be weekly episodes as part of the radio show called: "Eye on Media", on Radio Al-Balad 92.4 FM, the 1st Jordanian Community Radio. Airing every Monday at 11 AM, and replayed Wednesdays at 4 PM..And will be also available as a podcast and a text-based format each and every week.

This weekly segment is fully prepared and cooked by yours truly, independently from any radio station, including Radio Al-Balad it self (this is how a real community radio should be after all!). As you most probably got used to my style on my blog, i will publish anything, rationally, independently, neutrally and clearly, based as much as possible on facts rather than personal opinions. And will make sure this will be my methodology while preparing this weekly segment. And i hope you'd feel free to accept any positive criticism, and feel free to comment on Absolutely anything! and feed the segment with what you listen on the radio right away to the email address: radio@ammannet.net

For the 1st upcoming episode, i will be reviewing the reactions on the jordanian radio stations regarding the Gaza crisis.

If you think you heard anything unusual lately on the radio on any station regarding this issue, please feel free to contact the email mentioned above or comment on this post.

Lubna "Al-Koshieh" decleared dead!

2008-12-30T19:33:00.003+02:00

For those who don't know, and maybe never been to zarqa to know, Lubna Al-Koshieh (لبنى الكوشية) or (لبنى السريعة) is most probably the most dangerous woman in Jordan. and is famous in zarqa (mainly the inside zarqa bus terminal) for getting money from shops and people by force using knifes, and is also famous for beating up alot of gangsters in zarqa.

Lubna was declared dead yesterday after a fight.

The question that was always raised, forgetting the fact that her case was caused by a family destruction:
Why, and how she was always free! regardless of what she was doing.

Here is also a video i found on youtube for lubna during a wedding, another way for her to collect money:

Exclusive Photos of the Aqaba teenagers car accident

2008-12-17T15:37:00.001+02:00

ammannet.net, Radio Al-Balad's website has published last night exclusive photos for the teenagers car accident that happened during the eid holiday in Aqaba.

Just a to recap, this accident was caused by 5 teenagers, 4 boys and a girl, all under 18, driving during the eid holiday late at night without a license, on the southern beach highway in aqaba with a nissan with over 180 Km/h at crash time as reported by the traffic police dept (also obvious in the 1st photo), after it got off a bridge and ended up in a valley near the sea near the port's industrial area.

The tragic accident caused death to 4 of the teenagers, out of which was the son of the minister of justice, along with children of other socially and economically famous families.

I am publishing the photos just for the sake of reminding people that cars are not toys, and that responsible driving is the responsibility of us all.

Bloggers on air!

2008-12-13T17:32:00.001+02:00

Radio Al-Balad and ammannet.net have announced the launch of "Bloggers on Air" (مدونون على الهواء), a project and initiative oriented for improving video blogging.

The project will train 25 individuals on how to blog and vblog, and then create a blog for each and every one of them. and a video cam for 20 of them. and accordingly start a radio show that will tackle what they would be blogging!

The complete information and registration details are available on this link

Tomorrow, The Romanian Movie Days in Jordan

2008-12-03T08:41:00.000+02:00

The Jordanian Romanian Forum for Culture, along with the Romanian Embassy in Amman, and the Royal Film Commission, are proud to announce the 2nd edition of:

The Romanian Movie Days in Jordan

This coming Thursday & Friday, 4th and 5th of December, 2008. at the Royal Cultural Center.

1st Day: 4th of December.
Starting 6 PM:
- Opening ceremony by the Romanian Folkloric Group "Dumitru Zamfira"
- The 13 minutes short film : “Datorie” / “Duty” : by Vlad Trandafir
- The 9 minutes short film : “O Scurta plimbare cu masina” / “A short ride”
by Paul Negoescu – Karlovy Vary Fresh Film Festival winner
- The 14 minutes short film : “Megatron” by Marian Crisan – Cannes 2008 Best Short Film winner.

2nd Day: 5th of December.
4 PM: Classical Long Movie: "Padureanca" by Nicolae Margineanu
6 PM: Classical Long Movie: "Stefan Luchian" by Nicolae Margineanu

Entrance is Free. Films are subtitled in English

Classic Music back on the Jordanian airwaves

2008-11-29T16:51:00.001+02:00

I don't want to say "finally", since i discovered this show on Radio Jordan English Service by mistake several weeks ago, but well, later better than never, we do have an hour of "Classic Music" weekly on the Jordanian airwaves!

With all this jam of radio stations on the jordanian airwaves, we don't have a single radio station providing us with "Classical Music", Back in April 2007 we had a potential of having a radio station playing this type of music on the airwaves, but the station turned to be, at the end of the story, Sunny 105.1 FM, a Hot AC station.

Thank god Radio Jordan's english service, took the duty of playing classic music after the continuous revolutions we had in it, especially after we used to have the french service airing over 5-6 hours of it daily, and utilizing the big classic music collection it has with a weekly show, which is being aired at 11 PM on Thursday nights.

The show, which i never heard a title for, is quite interesting, as there is a man telling us about the piece of music with all the tiny musical details before airing the musical piece.
The show lasts mostly for about an hour, but sometimes more, depending on the played piece's length. so don't get surprised if at a certain moment of silence, you get Rihanna singing! its just that the show has ended!

Update:
The classic music show broadcasting on radio jordan is called "Nocturne", and its prepared and presented by Tariq Younes, along with another couple of classic music shows:
"Fortisimo": Tuesdays 1-2 pm
"Jordanesque": Wednesdays 6-7 pm

نوابنا الحريقة! حضور أسوء من مدرسة ثانوية و أفكار نابغة

2008-11-26T08:47:00.001+02:00

يعني فوق إنو بزبطوا حالهم بالسيارات و الزيادات من ألف و فوق و بصوتوا على إعطاء أبو عشر نيرات للشعب، و بمنعوا وزارة الزراعة من فتح استيراد زيت الزيتون مشان يحطوا هم السعر اللي بدهم اياه على تنكة الزيت و قوت المواطن اللي بطلع من مزارعهم.

فوق هذا كله كمان ما بيجوا على جلسات المجلس، مثل ما صار مبارح لما حضر 31 من 110.
و يا ريت هالــ 31 زي العالم و الناس... خذولكوا هالعينة

أشار الضلاعين، في نهاية كلمته، إلى أن العديد من الوزارات باتت بلا فائدة للدولة، ما حدا به إلى طرح الاقتراحات التالية حول مصير بعض الوزارات :
1- وزارة تطوير القطاع العام: لتصبح وحدة إدارية في المعهد الوطني للتدريب أو ديوان الخدمة المدنية.
2- وزارة التعليم العالي: تدمج مع وزارة التربية
3- وزارة التنمية السياسية: لا يوجد لها أي أثر، فالأفضل إلغائها.
4- وزارة الاتصال وتكنولوجيا المعلومات: أن تصبح جزءاً من المركز الوطني للمعلومات.
5- وزارة النقل: أن تصبح وحدة إدارية في هيئة تنظيم قطاع النقل.
6- وزارة البيئة: أن تدمج مع وزارة البلديات أو وزارة الزراعة.
7- وزارة الثقافة: أن تتبع للمجلس الأعلى للشباب

لا والله رأي حريقة، بده وزارة الإتصالات و النقل يصيروا جزء من دوائر فيهم، و البيئة هي و الزراعة واحد، مش كلوا بحكي عن كوكب الأرض، أما وزارة الثقافة فبرأيه شبابية بالآخر

Laugh it out loud with Jordanians!

2008-11-24T08:34:00.002+02:00

This article By Mike V. Derderian, can be found in TODAY's edition of the Star.

“Does anyone have any questions for the sponsors?” Omar Al Maani, the mayor of Amman, with a hint of gentle sarcasm said to a silent hoard of media representatives before someone actually did.

Silence prevailed for a moment or two until one journalist finally asked a question and begged one sponsor to fund an association for theatrical actors. For a press conference about a comedy festival that was extremely funny. A few minutes ago Maani, who with the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) is sponsoring Jordan’s first stand-up comedy festival, said that he uses humor to face the trials and tribulations of a day at the office.

“If I don’t do so I would blow a vein or die of a heart attack. Please if anyone has a good joke or two e-mail them to me,” Maani, who gave a heartfelt laugh as members of the press soon joined in.

Sitting next to Maani was Dean Obeidallah, an American comedian of Arabian roots, who was there with Maani and the of course sponsors part of a press conference to talk about The Amman Stand-Up Comedy Festival, which is to be held between December 2 and December 5 at Al Hussein Cultural Center.

Jordanians were first introduced to the stand up comedy format a few months ago when Obeidallah performed along The Axis of Evil comedians Maz Jobrani, Aron Kader and Ahmed Ahmed, who will all perform in the upcoming festival.

Some journalists attending the press conference mistook this social, religious, economic and political driven art form of self-expression as a branch of comedic theatre. Ok, maybe I am pushing the envelope when I religious. Stand-up comedy is an inner monologue that is voiced out-loud to a sitting crowd and a stand-up comedian is only armed with his razor sharp tongue, wits, jokes, humorous dialogue, punch-lines and of course a microphone.

For the upcoming festival there will be over 15 performers including Arab American comedians like Ali Hassan, Amer Zahr, James Smith, Mike Batayeh, Nemr Abu Nassar, Ronnie Khalil, Meena Dimian, Ronnie Khali, George Azmy, Ted Alexandro, James Smith, Russell Peters and of course Maysoon Zayid.

On their Facebook group the organizers announced that they want Jordanians in the lineup of the festival. So anyone interested in performing can upload videos online and send the links to ascf@ammancity.gov.jo and dean@deanofcomedy.com.

The stand-up comedy fever is spreading and the festival's posters that were fixed over electricity line poles are worth the checking. Reading the festival's main tagline Rah Tedhak Khawa, which roughly translates to You Will Be Forced To Laugh, which is written over and under human faces that have a wide smile superimposed over their real and dull expressions, one cannot but wonder why Jordanians are looked upon as no more than a bunch of sourpusses—hardly the case when one attends a gathering of friends, young and old, read a caricature for Emad Hajjaj or even strike up a conversation with a taxi driver.

Jordanians are funny but they have been repeating this lie—Jordanians are not funny—for so long that they've started to believe it and the Festival of Comedy will hopefully change this.

"The purpose behind the festival is to change this misconception as I believe Jordanians are intelligent and often express themselves through humor in their daily activities," Maani stated, adding, "the success of Laughter Week yielded the idea for this festival, which is part of GAM's mission to hone individualistic skills and talents."

The festival, which is part of a non-profit program, was developed in close collaboration with the critically acclaimed New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, which according to Maani is here to stay if it proves successful with Jordanians.

“This is truly the first festival. The other show we did had the same performers each night. This is each show is a different night with different performers and that's truly the essence of a festival in my eyes," Obeidallah said, before adding, "such a festival will result in positive press coverage for the locality that is having the event. The Montreal and Edinburgh Comedy Festival did the same respectively for Canada and Scotland.

Obeidallah believes that this Festival will encourage young talents to become more active in the Jordanian performing arts arena especially stand-up. "I also see this event creating a wider appreciation for comedy in Jordan and should be recognized as a marked calendar occurrence staged in Amman, as the region is full of raw talent that we are hoping to bring to the forefront and if all goes well this year the festival will become a staple of Amman,” Obeidallah added.

The festival according to Maani will contribute to Amman's position as a pioneering city that embraces, creates, and hosts cultural activities like the stand-up comedy festival that he hopes will attract headlining performers from the Middle East, United States of America, and Europe.

“The Greater Amman Municipality anticipates that this festival will increase tourist traffic to the City during the month of December and will also place Jordan and its talent pool on the international map of comedy. We are always keen on urging our community members to express themselves and interact through the many forms of performing arts and stand-up comedy is the rawest and most interactive form of comedy,” explained Maani, "if this year's festival proves successful we will turn it into an event that will turn Amman to a comedic hub that will attract comedians from across the Middle East."

"The goal of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival that I worked on and created with Comedian Maysoon Zayid, five years ago was not only to entertain but to break stereotypes and show other Americans that Arabs can be funny. I hope that there will be media coverage back home about this festival to show that Arabs in this region are funny, "Obeidallah explained.

Well, Jordanians will just have to prove, to themselves first, and the world second, that they have funny bones and a Jordanian holding a microphone standing on an empty stage facing a crowd can be as funny as an American stand up comedian doing the same.

Expressive enough :) See you at the Amman Stand-up Comedy festival between the 2nd and the 5th of December at Ras El-Ein :) .... hmm ,,, well, less the last couple of days, as i have another hot even for you to be reveled soon ;)

"Jordan Business" ignoring my response on last month's story

2008-11-17T13:54:00.004+02:00

It was "interesting enough", as much as disappointing, how non of the points i mentioned in my response on Jordan Business's Magazine last month's cover story were neither commented by any of the magazine's staff to whom the response was sent, nor mentioned and not even commented in this month's edition of the magazine.

If you never tried public transportation, and can't move your self out of that car, just SHUT UP! we dont need your "Rich thoughts" if you consider public transportation for the "lower class".

Physically speaking, the bus riders are in a higher lever than car drivers by the way.

BBC DJ quits Beat FM's rock show!

2008-11-12T17:51:00.002+02:00

Last Night, Beat FM's rock show "Rock N Jordan" witnessed a change, the show is not presented by the BBC presenter Andy May anymore, and is now presented as a LIVE show (instead of being recorded all the way from the UK), by Rob Stevens and Dana Hjazeen. same time, tuesdays 9-11 PM.

Quite an improvement in style, show quality (content and sound), and interactivity, since it was live.

This comes of course after less than 1 month of having BBC's Andy May presenting the show, and having Andy quitting the duty of doing this show due to problems that seemed to be between Andy and the management at Beat FM.

I was wondering from the beginning on the reason behind having a DJ doing a recorded show from abroad by a non-residence DJ, especially when the resource is already available locally.

Finally, I got a clue that a Jordanian DJ will be doing the show entirely withing the next couple of weeks, wondering if yesterday's co-host, Dana, will be the one taking over the show

How to implement a "startreck" technology!

2008-11-05T15:42:00.006+02:00

• 35 HD cameras pointed at the subject in a ring
• Different cameras shoot at different angles (like the matrix), to transmit the entire body image
• Cameras being hooked up to the cameras in home base in NY, synchronizing the angles so perspective is right
• Infrared communication
• A 37-inch plasma where the return feed of the combined images are fed back. Useful for a misplaced hair or an unseemly boogar!
• Twenty "computers" are crunching this data in order to make it usable...

and the Result ....LIVE On CNN ... tataaan!

Amaaaazing ... for real!

More on Gizmodo ... in order to know exactly how it all worked! (text above is qouted from Gizmodo)

You can also get to see Cisco's "Musion System" Hologram in this Video

Also from andfaraway.net

My TEN to SPIN!

2008-11-05T12:18:00.000+02:00

Ten reasons on why you can listen to Spin Jordan!

1- Its "Like it is"!

2- It has a FULL complete coverage for all the areas of Amman on 94.1 FM, unlike all the other western music radio stations who get to have a problem in an area or another.

3- Its the 1st western music station broadcasting out of Amman, the 1st western music radio station to broadcast in Irbid on 88.3, the 1st western music radio station to broadcast in Petra on 88.5 FM, & the 1st western music radio station to broadcast in Aqaba pretty soon! and not to forget on Nilesat!

4- It has THE BEST sound quality jordanian radio EVER witnessed!

5- It has LIVE shows covering your entire day! with over 12 hours of LIVE shows daily

6- Its the 1st western music radio station to get you entertained during the weekends with live shows, and not only repeating redundant music!

7- It Gives you money just because you are listening :) just like in the 10000 JD triple play!

8- It has Tamer Bataineh in the morning with his Breakfast Espresso! The only Jordanian DJ on a privately owned western music radio station in Jordan. with 100% jordanian craziness! followed by 100 spin hits in a row making you sacrifise to listen while you're at work.

9- It has an hour by hour at the top the hour update of REAL-TIME & "Like it is" 5 word weather. something understandable for the people!

10- It might bring you up some SPINIs as well! who knows!

SPIN Jordan ... Like it is :)

Does the TRC care only about licensing!

2008-11-02T12:50:00.003+02:00

Thats an Open Question after the fact that Ministry of Trade announced it WILL NOT allow Mobile companies to charge 1 piaster/ SMS report as its illegal, while ALL the 3 GSM Mobile companies, Umniah, Zain and Orange simply kept ignoring that and CHARGING that extra piaster starting October 29th!

interesting is the fact that no comment from the TRC is out yet on this! and the companies are still charging

Can they, the TRC, tell us, the mobile telecom users, whats their point of view from this! will the TRC get our money back!? will it 1st of all try to stop the telecom companies from getting this piaster, as the companies are still getting it!

www.JordanRadioGuide.com

2008-10-28T10:10:00.002+03:00

Yes :)
With many thanks to Mr Qwaider, he reserved this URL and made it forward to my Radio guide page :)

its even easier now guys: www.JordanRadioGuide.com

Thanks for the support Qwaider

Jordan's Radio Guide moved to this blog

2008-10-27T09:10:00.003+03:00

Yes!
Finally I managed to have the Jordanian Airwaves radio guide moved to this blog, after over 3.5 years of running it on a stupid green sticky page :D

The Jordanian Radio Guide will be available from now on through this link:
http://nasimjo.blogspot.com/search/label/radioguide
The guide has suffered a nice makeover, and more options will hopefully be available gradually soon.

The radio guide updates are of course still available on
http://nasimjo.blogspot.com/search/label/Radio Guide Update

Urban Beats debutes today on Beat FM

2008-10-22T13:34:00.002+03:00

Urban Beats, is a new Hip Hop, Rap & R'n'B show that is to debut tonight on Beat FM.

The show, which will be LIVE every wednesday from 9-11 PM (in contrast with Beat FM's Rock N Jordan), is hosted by DJ SOTUSURA, a Palestinian MC, Rapper, and DJ living in Jordan.

So finally, the Jordanian radio market is starting to MOVE and SHAKE! we are starting to hear different things on Western radio stations here in jordan, more shows, more entertainment, and a heavier competition.

Its amazing how it took the market to get jammed with 7 stations (out of which is from an international group), along with the public state english-speaking radio. to get more action in it!

toot toot! My blog is tooting like toot!

2008-10-22T11:13:00.002+03:00

Since the toot season started , it had even an extension due to high demand :) out of which my blog ... this one you are reading, has been tooted as well, no where else but on toot.

And on those occasion, may i toot up all the tooter from toot which have been tooting for a all those tooted years tootly.

Thank god they found the mo3amaleh and tooted me up :D

How to listen to Spin FM's Spin@Work, while being actually ... At Work!

2008-10-21T08:33:00.004+03:00

The photo is expressive enough .... anyway, try to listen to Spin@Work with Dj Hassan spinning 100 hits in a row from 10AM-4PM on Spin FM...Like it is!
& those guys should really start their online streaming on www.spin.jo , because not everyone is a radio freak like me :D

By the way, I will keep listening this way after the streaming is ON! damn internet qoutas :S

Responding on Jordan Business Magazine's public transportation Cover Story

2008-10-19T08:50:00.000+03:00

This month's Jordan Business magazine had an interesting Cover Story about Public Transportation by Zaina Steityeh. That went to tackle several domains in the public transportation. But i felt like commenting on the parts talking about urban public transportation in Amman.

1st of all, I would like to talk a bit about the GAM taking over the control of public transportation in Amman. Which is indeed a move in the right way, as traffic and transportation have been always connected together from an urban point of view, and where-ever you go in this world, you'd always find urban public transportation always in the hand of the city municipalities, both as a regulator and operator, something which is not yet implemented in Amman, despite the fact that the GAM has 13% of the CMTC, the biggest operators in the capital Amman, but they don't really have so-called “weight” in that, and on the contrary, the owners of the CMTC are using that for their benefit, just like when the CMTC tried to convince the GAM to do a “special recommendation” to the licensing department to let them accept the 15 Convema buses (Convema is a non existing brand by the way), which were produced at the free zone by a sister company owned as well by Abu Khader Group, without having ABS (which is a requirement for licensing buses) nor any other minimal safety requirements, and which were put on the black-list by the licensing department. Unfortunately, the buses were licensed accordingly and are operating for a while now. And maybe this story would justify the unnamed source that told the story writer, quoting: “When it's separate, the regulatory body doesn't have a direct link to the bottom line of the operation and will, therefore, not be tempted to take shortcuts, overlook safety precautions or take cost-cutting measures at the expense of the final consumer. Out citizen”.

Anyway, fortunately, this was the only bad effect we have witnessed until the moment from the GAM taking over the regulation of Public Transportation in Amman. On the other hand, we have witnessed a lot of efficiency in planning, especially in the fact that the GAM got convinced that traffic problems should be solved by having a better organized, managed, and attractive urban public transportation (something i have been saying since 2005 anyway!), and that the GAM is willing finally to have a multi-dimensional public transportation, by creating a new backbone of BRT and LRT services. As well as efficiency in other minor things, like re-pricing, when the fuel prices went up, in comparison with the PTRC for example.

Despite that, we are still facing another kind of duplicability in the sector which wasn't mentioned in the article, when it comes to short routes that start from Amman, cross a big part of Amman, and head towards end of routes outside it. As those routes serve a lot of people moving inside Amman, while they are still in the hand of PTRC, and people have no other choice but use those means of transport. Simple examples are the Zarqa buses which are the only ones serving areas like Tabarbour and Marka when trying to head to/from there towards University of Jordan and Western Amman. As well as Raghadan-Salt and Raghadan-Baqaa routes. So we are having routes on main corridors in Amman, serving quite big numbers of people, and are still regulated by the PTRC. Ironically, some of those routes are even served for example by the CMTC which the GAM has a share of 13%!

Moving forward in the article towards the “Diffused Ownership” section. Diffused Ownership might be a headache and problem causer in the sector in general, something i totally agree, especially when it comes to poor routes that link some towns/cities to more remote areas, but the experience showed that companies ownership of routes is not that much better when it comes to urban public transportation. To be more precise, no single company handling urban (or part-urban) public transportation is doing it well, a part from the CMTC (which i will be talking about later), there are also other companies operating their routes in bad manners, with very “rubbished” and unmannered-unmaintained buses, quite very good examples are the very famous Raghadan-Salt buses which are owned by a company called: “Abu Rajouh & Abu Haswa & Co”, Yes! despite being medium sized buses, or so-called “Coaster” buses, those notably dirty, unmaintained, and always with a black cloud coming out of their exhausts buses on this route are ALL owned by a company that cares only to push their vehicles to the limit in order to raise their income! Similar examples are “Ahmad Abul S'oud & Hamad Abu Zaid Co” famous for operating in eastern Amman areas, as well as the very famous rubbished Zarqa buses moving towards most of Amman's areas owned by “Armouti, Ghweiri, & Sawalha Co”. As well as several others. All of those are not owned by individual bus owners, but all of us are having problems with them as bus users, especially when it comes to buses maintenance and safety, as well as quality of service, and non-commitment to routes in some cases, and lets totally forget about schedules and peak hours jams! Thus, I guess that the GAM and PTRC should 1st solve us our problems with those “Fat ownerships” that care only about rapid profit, then start saying Diffused ownership is a problem. And I would have liked it if Zaina Steityeh came down out of her car to the streets, and try some of those operators bad service, and compare it for example to quality bus services provided by a lot of organized Individual Bus owners, just like those operating on routes like Sweileh-Wadi Al-Seer, and Sweileh-Dakhelieh Circle. Routes on which individual bus drivers and owners have agreed on organized service and queuing (with frequencies that reach 1 bus/minute in peak times even!), and routes on which over 90% of the buses are always clean and tidy, and routes like the 2nd mentioned where buses operate up late to 11 PM and beyond 12 midnight in holidays!

I agree, however, with Mr Qudah's point when it comes to Diffused Ownerships in the trucking sector, and i guess that the Ministry of Transport should encourage small and medium projects in this sector to try eliminating diffused ownerships in it. Good models to follow are the ones in Turkey & Eastern European countries, where small & medium companies with 10-15 trucks have a range of operation that reach the shores of the Atlantic! I don't want to get deeper into this at the moment though.

Last but not least, I want to comment on the information mentioned about the CMTC, mainly by its CEO, Mr Moayad Tarawneh, who, with all respect, is either so stupid to know what is really going on in that company behind him, or think that we are all so stupid to know what is going in there in that company by the company's owners he is facading!

What kind of effect does “Diffused Ownership” has on CMTC bad management of operation, as almost at any time in the day, you can find buses of their company roaming empty, to i don't know where, and their drivers refusing to stop and carryout people! (Oh! Or is it that the GAM is paying half of the raise in diesel prices, so to hell with the GAM's money!). And how does “Diffused Ownership” effect the messiness and non existence of scheduled services, and the miserable situation of their buses! And how does “Diffused Ownership” effect a route such as “Raghadan-Sweileh” that they tried to start, with buses leaving once every 40-50 minutes, and that start operating after the end of morning jam at around 9 AM and stop operating before 5 PM!

1st of all, the system they bough with over 1.5 million dollars, which is a combination of fleet tracking and electronic smart-card fare-collection system. Is already late for over 1 year and 4 months now. And its not up and running yet! And wont even be entirely up! As it will be limited to the electronic smart-card fare-collection part, without the fleet tracking part! Noting that over 130 buses (the ones inherited from Asia Transport Co.) were already running a very efficient smart card fare-collection system, with re-chargeable RFID cards, POS charging units, & card validators in all those buses. All of that ever since 2001, and i was my self a heavy user of those as well as tens of thousands others, including my 4 years campus life! So, it wasn't something “we were just dreaming of”, and the CMTC could have just extended the already existing investment by adding more POS and bus validators in their fleet! While when it comes to the fleet tracking part, which i am repeating again IS NOT RUNNING, just in the summer of 2007, the CMTC were offered a “Public Transportation Information System” that enabled entire real-time fleet tracking, automated and dynamic bus scheduling, automated remote control, and Dynamic real time Passenger Information in bus stations and through mobile and internet service, all at less than 30% of the costs they bought this system & up within 4 months, and was REFUSED by the company owners “The Abu Khader's”, claiming that the turkish 1.5 million $ system will be up and no-time, and that they are not in need of all those “extra features”!

Interesting, isn't it!

While on the other hand, since the CMTC are paying 3500 Euro/each digital bus display, can they at least properly turn them ON! The screens installed on their new buses are very unsuitable in shiny conditions, are MOSTLY turned OFF! Malfunctioned! Or simply showing a WRONG ROUTE other than the ones the bus is operating on! While the Yellow displays installed in older buses (Mostly on the ones inherited from Asia Transport Co) are way much better, though they are sometimes malfunctioned or simply turned off!

Thus, the CMTC's investment is wasted as pure as that! Absolutely everything Mr Tarawneh claimed in this interview to be exclusively done by the CMTC is done in a wrong way! I wonder if Mr Tarawneh ever tried even to spend a whole day on his fleet to see how easily can his white shirt capture the dirt in the bus, how some buses have rain dripping from their ceiling in winter, how he can be late at work because his oldest 1999 buses “that he thinks are still pretty new” move in a speed of 25 KMs/h while he is standing near the backseat of the bus with half of the bus's fumes spreading inside the bus, how he would have his head hitting in the ceiling of the bus's door while trying to hope off the new 2008 Mercedes buses which were built by Elba with wrong dimensions and standards, how he can wait in front of his office in Mecca Street waiting for a bus that almost never comes, or a bus that just goes under the Al-Kilo intersection in the tunnel ignoring the masses waiting regularly at the bus stop from where the bus should actually pass, or try to squeeze in between the students in a full bus going From or To the Hashemite University! That his company is serving!
Or even at least spend a day at the so-called maintenance centers where “Consumed Motor Oils” from other AK Automotive centers are used as fresh oil for CMTC's buses.

& can he just name me the so-claimed 42 routes the CMTC is operating! & tell us which are actually running, and which are just fake-outs on the paper!!

Again, its either that he is stupid, or thinks we are stupid, both cases, he is just an employee and a facade that hides out the company owners. & I mentioned also that he made a couple of mistakes in his interview, 1st, the GAM owns 13% of the CMTC and not 20%, the 2nd is the fact that the CMTC is a so-called “consortium” of 3 companies and not 4! which are Al-Thelal (owned by Abu Khader Automotive), Al-Tawfeek (which was also bought by Al-Thelal about a month before the creation of the CMTC), and Asia Transport Co., whose owner withdrew from the company awhile ago because of loads of managerial problems in the way the Abu Khader's where leading the CMTC. So mainly its a takeover not a consortium.

I would have wished if the story owner, Zaina Steityeh, would have investigated more on what is really going on in the streets and on the ground when it comes to urban public transportation, instead of having just some rosy statements for some people that, maybe, never tried to use urban public transportation inside Amman! & maybe even tried to have several rides her self!

Anyway, thank you for the interesting cover story, without it i might not had even wrote this long response that is almost as long as the story it self :)

Conclusion: Will Jordan Ever Get the Public Transportation System it Deserves?
I hope so, but nothing on the ground so far!

BRT in Amman

2008-10-16T15:28:00.000+03:00

Yes, its confirmed, both BRT(Bus Rapid Transit) & LRT (Light Railway Transit) will be forming the new backbone of urban public transportation in the capital Amman. and not as was mentioned before in the article published in Alrai about a month ago, and which i have commented on in a post right then.

Apparently, the reporter from Al-Rai got the whole thing wrong! and as i was told & confirmed by mr Ayman Smadi from The GAM, a BRT will be made on the University of Jordan route, and not a tramway.

Both, BRT & LRT, will move the entire urban public transportation infrastructure in Amman to another level, and more even, to a multi-leveled one, with having BRT & LRT creating the backbone of this infrastructure on the main corridors in the capital.

As for BRT, for those who don't really know about it. BRT, or Bus Rapid Transit, is a very big and long bus service, operating on their own street, in parallel with the ordinary street, assuring rapid, comfortable, and frequency-based Quality of Service. away from the messiness and traffic jams on the on the street.

One very successful experience is istanbul's BRT, branded as MetroBus.

Here is also a video showing you the difference of speed between the BRT and the regular traffic.

Istanbul's New BRT System in Action from EMBARQ Network on Vimeo.

Thanks also to fayez who pointed out a piece of news in today's alghad newspaper confirming BRT's implementation.

Al-Wakeel playing Hummam Ammari's "SubarStar" :)

2008-10-13T08:15:00.001+03:00

Despite the fact that Hummam Ammari's latest funny song, "Jordanian SubarStar", which is a funny arabic remake of the famous Nickelback song "Rockstar", was produced by Play 99.6. & was made available by them through a post on their blog for public download. This song wasn't even aired by Play 99.6 fully on the airwaves, and only promoted with a small snap it of the song. most probably due to the "genre differences in the music style" :D

Anyway, just minutes away this morning, The famous radio announcer Mohammad Al-Wakeel, played the song on his show on Radio Fann :) as well the original one ... and he concentrated on the fragment of song where hummam says:
"بدي أطلع الصبح عبرنامج الوكيل"
Followed of course by Al-Wakeel's famous laugh :D

& we can say that it was 1st to be aired on Radio Fann, even before Play :D

For those who didn't hear it yet, it available for public download HERE

While the lyrics are available by R0ba on her blog with a nice analysis attempt :)

Finally! a ROCK Music show on a Jordanian Radio!

2008-10-08T08:23:00.002+03:00

Rock N Jordan, on Beat FM 102.5! is, Finally!, the 1st Rock Music Radio Show on a commercial radio station in Jordan.

After we grew up on a heavy doze of Rock and Metal music back in time on Radio Jordan 96.3 FM's "Late Night Rock" every Wednesday for 4 entire hours before midnight. and after the show went off air and back on air several times with "Rania The Queen of Rock" (this is how we used to name her), and Laith Shankiti along with Zaid Al-Dahabi. We are now suffering a total lack of this music genre on the Jordanian Airwaves, nor on Radio Jordan 96.3 FM nor any other commercial radio.

So ... Rock N Jordan will premier on Beat FM 102.5 next Tuesday October 14th starting 9 PM. It will serve the listeners with 2 hours of the world's best Rock and Indie tracks. The style will include Rock, Pop Rock, Indie Rock, and Acoustic Rock.

Rock N Jordan WAS hosted at the beginning by BBC TV and Radio presenter Andy May. Until November the 4th, when was his last show (Maybe his 1st attempt to have a radio show for a non-UK radio station). Hoping that the show will be done by a Jordanian rock talent, like if we dont have 100s here!

I also received information confirming that Beat FM is interested in featuring Jordan's local talents' tracks on the show.... so, who knows! send one of your songs to demos@mybeat.fm (The email is provided on the website as well) and maybe they will be featuring your music on the show!

The 5th Element, back on Energy FM

2008-10-05T14:45:00.001+03:00

The 5th element, the one and only Hip Hop, Rap, and R'n'B radio show in the middle eastern region, by Dj Shadia. is back to the Jordanian airwaves after it came out from Jordan on Play 99.6, and was stopped earlier last November 2007.

The 5th Element with DJ Shadia is back on Energy FM, at the same times as it used to be, Monday Evenings from 9 PM.

The show is also being aired on Mix FM Syria, and still airs on Radio 1 Lebanon.

GAM to spend 5 million/KM on "Poor's railway" instead of BRT!

2008-09-23T14:45:00.001+03:00

via alrai newspaper

عمان - محمد الدويري - قال مدير دائرة النقل والمرور في امانة عمان السيد عبد الرحيم الوريكات ان الامانة تعتزم انشاء نوعين من سكك الحديد في عمان اولها خط النقل السريع وموقعه داخل الجزيرة الوسطية والاخر خط سكة اما يكون فوق الارض او تحتها بحسب الدراسات.
واضاف الوريكات في تصريح لـ''الرأي'' ان الامانة ستطرح خلال شهرين عطاء الدراسات والتصميم للمشروعين الذي تصل كلفة الاول 5 ملايين دينار لكل كيلو متر فيما تصل كلفة الاخر 20 مليون دينار لكل كيلو متر.
وبين الوريكات ان خط النقل السريع الذي يطلق عليه ''سكة الفقراء'' سيكون ضمن مسارب خاصة تأتي في الجزيرة الوسطية للشارع وستمتد المرحلة الاولى من شارع الجامعة الاردنية الى المحطة فيما تشمل المرحلة الثانية شارع الاميرة بسمة وثم يربط الدوار الخامس باشارة وادي صقرة ثم المدينة الرياضية.
اما مشروع سكة الحديد، قال الوريكات ان السكة ستمتد من وسط البلد الى المحطة وشارع الملك حسين ثم شارع سليمان النابلسي و شارع شاكر بن زيد الى اشارات وادي صقرة

Important Note: Apparently, Al-rai's reporter missed things up, and the GAM will be implementing BRT in Amman. DETAILS HERE

In short, the Greater Amman Municipality is planning to build a couple of urban railway tracks in the capital, the 1st will be similar to a tramway (if not actually one) in a separate lane in the middle of the streets, and will be called "Poor's railway" and will be connected Al-Mahatta to University of Jordan, and later extended to the 5th circle via King Abdulla Gardens.

The 2nd project will be an underground metro (& maybe onground in some areas) from Al-Mahatta via downtown and Wadi Saqra street to King Abdullah Gardents.

I'm very much into the 2nd project, especially that the area is narrow & needs such a project.

But i don't understand this "Poor's railway / tramway" thing!
1st of all is the name! which is SOOOOOOOOO underrated for such an important and dynamic project. and its not only me mentioning that!

While on the other hand, the HUGE cost of the project raises a big question mark! 5 million JD / KM is a HUGE amount of money. and instead of having all the mess from such a project, and all the years needed to implement it (& the glitches taken from the zarqa light railway project that didn't see light until now), and all the money to spend.

A small simple rapid solution can be implementing BRT instead!
BRT: Standing for "Bus Rapid Transit" is a broad term given to a variety of transportation systems that, through improvements to infrastructure, vehicles and scheduling, attempt to use buses to provide a service that is of a higher quality than an ordinary bus line.

Thus, we can make the same lanes, but with asphalt instead of a railway, with the same stations and ticketing and so ... & have Big Hybrid buses running through it.

& there you go, the entire project done in a couple of months, and with the cost of 2 KMs or less! & pretty much easily extensible.
Like this!

& the buses can be even as big as this!

and the web is just FULL of BRT plans .... here are some blogs even!

Spin FM shows grid .. EXCLUSIVE!

2008-09-22T09:57:00.004+03:00

This is EXCLUSIVE guys! only here on n@simjo .. and they're all starting ... today!
I bet the guys from Communicorp will kill me for this :D

Weekdays shows will be:

Breakfast Espresso with Tamer Bataineh: 7-10
Spin@Work (with 100 Spin Hits in a Row! Love it!) with Hasan Hijjawi: 10-16
Zoo Crew with Lena Ghannam (Yup! the Pulp girl!) and Mosaab Mustata: 16-19 (starting after ramadan)

While weekends will have a special grid as well:
The Late Late Breakfast Show with Emile Haddad: 10-13
and
The Weekender with Tamim Suyyagh: 16-19
The Juice with Hasan Hijjawi (Fridays): 19-22

Spin FM Jordan starts talking!

2008-09-22T08:03:00.006+03:00

Spin FM Jordan, and in less than 1 month from starting, Spin FM debuts its 1st radio show on air!

"The Spin Morning Espresso!" is now on AIR! with .... guess who! Yes,!!! the man with the master plan, the crazy morning guy: TAMER BATAINEH! Weekdays 7-10 AM

Yes! he is doing all his crazyness on air!
Yes! he is playing ALTERNATIVE MUSIC on AIR! and even, new HITS from those geners of music (some no one in jordan is playing!)
Yes! Tamer Batayneh is on the jordanian airwaves again :)

More on CMTC's fake financial reports.

2008-09-18T08:33:00.001+03:00

Commenting on yesterday's post, which was a quoted economic analysis made by Mr Hasan Al-Shobakee, from Alghad newspaper about the financial situation of the CMTC (The Comprehensive Multiple Transportation Company), the major urban public transportation operator in the capital Amman, and which was branded lately as “autobus”. And no, i didnt forget to link it to autobus.jo, its just that the domain name advertised on the buses never was and still, a domain without an operating website.

A lot of financial issues were published in the article, summarizing here in English (since the article was in Arabic) some of the facts that the company's financial report, made by Amwal invest, was a complete fake out for the actual company situation, the entire set of numbers was different in the Social Security Dept's assessment report according to which the Social Security Dept withdrew from the company (considering the tight relations between Amwal Invest and the major owners in CMTC – Abu Khader Automotive).

So, from personal loans thrown on the company's budget, even to loans taken for buses maintenance and rehabilitation (which wasn't even used), to the “Convema” (a non existing brand) buses that where but from another company by AK automotive which has build the buses at the Free Zone upon Mitsubishi Canter pickups chases and engine with over 71,000 JD bus each, with a total of 1.07 Million JD, financed in leasing by AK automotive's own leasing company. Even though those buses dont even cost 40,000 JD (a number estimated by the Social Security Dept in their report apparently), especially since we are talking about low quality materials, plastic windows, and no safety dotations (not even ABS, a fact that those buses were made by the company at the free zone in 2004, and not allowed to be soled inside Jordan because of this fact!). And finally to the fact that the CMTC acquisition of Asia Transport Co was made with 18.9 million JD, which the actual amount didn't exceed 7.7 million JD!

With an end of the story regarding the introduction of CMTC in the Amman Stock Exchange earlier this year, where it was said that stocks were sold with 18 million JD in this introduction, while the actual amount was 8 million JD. That is after both, their attempt of faking out financial reports as above failed in attracting people to buy the company's stocks, as well as the image makeover of their buses and branding them as “autobus” didn't get that much success, a an external makeover in which they attempted to hide the bad quality of service and miserable situation of the buses.

Since about the bad quality service i have already talked several times and can keep on talking. This time i want to give out a small random sample of observations on what is more hidden and away from the eyes of my dear luxury car drivers and riders.

Photos are from my own collection, as well as courtesy of Ehab Hakawati and Ro'a Eliwat. and those are just a small sample of what our eyes catch daily!

The marked is the convema buses mentioned above

Most of the buses have tight spaces for passengers, due to the fact that the company squeezes more rows of seats than the actual number

No Comment

and of course, in a rush hour, where the bus is almost full on feet as well, imagine standing beside a door with a broken window!

Some Digital displays are not working at all

while others are broken despite being new! and you can only guess on what route this bus is moving, and talk with the driver sign language!

and lets not forget the miserable hygienic situation inside the buses

Radio Guide Update: Mazaj FM on 101.7 FM in Irbid

2008-09-18T08:13:00.003+03:00

Mazaj FM started broadcasting in irbid on 101.7 FM earlier this month.

This is the 1st frequency for Mazaj FM and seagulls in general outside the Greater Amman Area. and this will add some change on the radio scene in the northern jordanian city of irbid, since Mazaj FM is a differently themed radio station than the other operating ones in Irbid area.

أمانة عمان تكتشف "فضائح" المتكاملة للنقل المتعدد

2008-09-17T13:19:00.001+03:00

هذا المقال تم نشره البارحة في جريدة الغد، كتحليل إقتصادي للسيد حسن الشوبكي، و تم نقله كما هو:

امين عمان يحول "خلافا " بين الامانة والشركة المتكاملة للنقل المتعدد الى التحكيم، ويعهد بالتحكيم الى وزير الصناعة والتجارة السابق شريف الزعبي. خبر مقتضب نشر مؤخرا في صحيفة يومية .. بيد ان القصة الكاملة للشركة المتكاملة تستوجب التحويل الى قضاء اكثر تخصصا على اثر ما كان يجري

فيها خلال العامين الماضيين، اسوة بالقضايا المماثلة التي تم التعامل معها بالطرق القضائية الصحيحة، بوصف الشركة مساهمة عامة ارتكب فيها ما يمس الحقوق وما يؤشر على ضياع الاموال وتكبيد الشركة خسائر تكشفها ميزانيتها للعام الماضي.

تداعيات ما حدث في الشركة المتكاملة للنقل المتعدد – مساهمة عامة برأسمال 20 مليون دينار – كشفت من خلال تقريرين متناقضين حيال وضع الشركة المالي، الاول اعدته شركة "اموال انفست" والتي يرأسها هنري عزام والثاني اعدته دائرة تمويل المشاريع في الهيئة الاستثمارية التابعة للضمان

الاجتماعي، وكان التقرير الاول اعد في منتصف الشهر الاخير من العام 2006 وذلك لتقدير السعرالعادل لسهم الشركة لغايات الشراء.

تقرير "اموال انفست" يكشف تباينا واضحا واختلافا في الايرادات الفعلية للشركة المتكاملة وارباحها واوضاع الباصات فيها، علما ان رئيس اموال انفست هنري عزام يشارك في عضوية مجلس ادارة " المتكاملة "، وفي مقابل ذلك يقدم تقرير الهيئة الاستثمارية صورة اكثر سوداوية لواقع الشركة المالي والاداري.

وتشير البيانات في ميزانية الشركة المتكاملة للعامين الماضيين الى ان الشركة زادت التزاماتها خلال الشهرين الاخيرين من العام 2006 بمبلغ اضافي قدره 4.6 مليون دينار لترفع التزاماتها بذلك الى 8.6 مليون دينار، وهي التزامات فيها الكثير من الذمم الشخصية على رئيس مجلس الادارة جورج ابو خضر على النحو التالي: قرض بمبلغ مليوني دينار من بنك الاتحاد لتسديد جزء من شراء شركة اسيا، قرض بمبلغ ربع مليون دينار من بنك الاتحاد لاعادة بناء وصيانة باصات الشركة لكنه لم يستغل، وذمم اخرى على رئيس مجلس الادارة جورج ابو خضر.

ويكشف تقرير الهيئة الاستثمارية انه بالاضافة الى اقتراض رئيس مجلس الادارة بموجب اسم الشركة المتكاملة لتملك شركات شقيقة، فإن الشركة المتكاملة اشترت 15 حافلة من نوع " كوفيما " بمبلغ 1.07 مليون دينار من الشركة الشقيقة والتي كانت تملك مصنعا لتصنيع الباصات في المنطقة الحرة وتم التمويل عن طريق شركة شقيقة اخرى وهي المتكاملة للتاجير التمويلي وبمعدل 70 الف دينار لسعر الباص الواحد، علما ان سعرالباص كما يؤكد تقرير الهيئة لايتجاوز 40 الفا وبمواصفات افضل.

في ذات الشأن المالي، فان ميزانية الشركة للعام الماضي تظهر خسائر متراكمة بحجم 1.9 مليون دينار، كما تظهر البيانات المالية التي اعدت لتنفيذ صفقة بيع السهم بسعر 1.6 دينار للسهم الواحد ان الثمن الفعلي لبيع الاسهم بلغ نحو 8 ملايين دينار وليس 18 مليون دينار وهو ما يدعو الى التساؤل عن سبب ادراج مبلغ الشهرة في الميزانية ورفعه الى 11.3 مليون دينار.

وقد كانت الشركة المتكاملة قد قامت في نهاية عام 2006 بشراء كامل حصص الشركاء في رأسمال احدى شركات النقل مقابل مبلغ 18.9 مليون دينار والتي تمت على اساس صافي حقوق الشركاء لتلك الشركات والبالغة 7.6 مليون دينار بحيث تم اعتبار الفرق البالغ 11.3 مليون دينار شهرة ناتجة عن شراء كامل حصص رأسمال تلك الشركات.

تفاصيل " المتكاملة " ليست عادية او طبيعية او حتى قانونية، ويسجل للفريق الذي درس اوضاع الشركة من الهيئة الاستثمارية قيمة الملاحظات التي وردت في التقرير وكانت سببا في عدم الشراء لاحقا، وهو ما يجعل الكثير من التساؤلات تثور جملة واحدة بعد قرار امين عمان المهندس عمرالمعاني تحويل الخلاف بين الامانة التي تملك 20 % من الشركة وادارة المتكاملة الى التحكيم.

من اهم الملاحظات والتساؤلات في هذه القصة يكمن التساؤل عن سبب عدم وقف المعاني لتلك التجاوزات بعد علمه ومعرفته بما كان يدور في اروقة الشركة المتكاملة ودهاليزها، وابلغ من ذلك، التساؤل عن الجهة القانونية التي من المفترض ان تقدم استشارات قانونية للمعاني وهي ذات الجهة التي تأخذ اتعابها بالدقيقة، واخيرا ، كيف يمكن فهم تحويل التحكيم الى مكتب شريف الزعبي، علما بان الزعبي كان وزيرا للصناعة والتجارة خلال تسجيل تلك المخالفات في الشركة، وكان حريا ان يتم كشفها في عهد الوزير وبموجب مسؤوليته وبحكم موقعه انذاك، حتى لا يتكرر ذات المشهد في هذه الشركة اوفي أي شركة مشابهة من الشركات المساهمة العامة.

وثمة معطيات تؤشر على وجود مخالفات ذات طابع كبير وتبعات قانونية اكبر من ان تعالج في اروقة القضاء المدني او التحكيم، ولعل من ابرزها ان التقرير المالي الذي اعدته شركة اموال انفست يقدم رواية وردية للشركة لا تؤيدها رواية فريق الهيئة الاستثمارية ولا تؤيدها ايضا ما الت اليه

الخلافات بين امانة عمان ممثلة بعمر المعاني عضو مجلس ادارة الشركة المتكاملة وبين الشركة ذاتها، مع تجديد التساؤل عن قانونية اعداد تقريراموال انفست من عدمه، وهي التي يشارك رئيسها هنري عزام في عضوية مجلس ادارة المتكاملة.

ومن الغريب جدا وغير المقبول ايضا ان توظف اموال شركة مساهمة عامة لتمويل مشاريع خاصة لاصحاب رأس المال فيها ، وهذا ما جرى العمل عليه في تلك الشركة ، اذ لا يعقل ان يقترض اصحاب رأس المال من شركة لتمويل استثماراتهم فيها، واين مراقبة الشركات في وزارة الصناعة والتجارة من كل هذا، ام ان مراقبة الشركات تكتفي بحضور اجتماعات الهيئات العامة وتنفذ دورا شكليا لا علاقة له بما يجري داخل الشركات من مخالفات او انتهاكات.

قصة المتكاملة يجب ان تكون على طاولة القضاء المختص بهذا المستوى من المخالفات لا ان يجري لملمتها وكأن اموال الشعب والضرائب التي تدفع لا قيمة لها، ويتصرف به أي كان في الشركات المساهمة العامة، التي تشير الوقائع الى انها ابعد ما يكون عن عين الرقيب.

لا أدري ماذا أعلق على ذلك، أنا شخصياً أعرف بالعديد من هذه الأمور و النقاط المذكورة، و لكن ليس بالأرقام كما هو مذكور. على كل حال، قد أقوم بالتعليق على ذلك في بوست آخر لاحقاً

My comments are available in a separate post, here

Energy FM, killed or resurrected!?

2008-09-15T08:50:00.004+03:00

Energy 97.7 FM, the radio station which was lunched just at the beginning of this year, & which started a couple of shows (& not even all the promised and promoted shows yet), was put ON hold by the Al-Kawn's Management!

Apparently, this was the reason behind stopping the shows during ramadan on the airwaves of the radio station, in a period while other radio stations around jordan, both arabic and english speaking. are trying to enrich their programs grid!

Apart from the fact that this hang is doubting the station's position in the market, which, as observed, couldn't really attract that much advertisers even before this hang! & they never even reached 10% of Play FM and Beat FM's weight in the market!

associated with this sudden stop, came the resignation of Adrienne Denaro, Co-Host of the Morning Fix and the station's program manager! & there rumors around about some change in style! why do i feel that this might mean a change from a "Dance Hit Music Station" (which was observed in Energy's style of music during the past months) to a "Hit Music Station" !!! just like the other ones in the market!

Or does it mean turning it into a "Mute" show-less radio station! which i guess it already is!

Or is it just that the jordanian airwaves are having more and more copy-cats around!

lets wait and see!

Update: The Lipstick lunch girls has also resigned. and the show was put on hold

JO Magazine turns 5!

2008-09-13T14:17:00.003+03:00

5 years of variety and dynamism
5 years of professional journalism
5 years of all kinds of topics, ranging from the Amman bombings to Drugs, from Night life and Night clubs in Amman to Honor crimes, from The Alternative Music movement in Jordan to Porn Cinemas in downtown Amman ... all covered in JO.
5 years of english-written magazines in Jordan (since JO was the 1st!)
5 years of the most serious magazine in Jordan, yet the most hyper dynamic.
5 years of the jordanian magazine that just makes you proud as a jordanian!

Yes, JO Magazine, turning 5 with their 61st issue this month, is a magazine that I'd like to follow up each and every month. And despite the fact that i sometimes (rarely) might not buy it, but like to follow it up. Simply because its a realistic magazine, and its probably the only English written magazine in Jordan that is not oriented towards the elite rich people in Jordan, and rather tackles all sorts of topics from the dynamic Jordanian society, with its goods and bads, and is just an overall looking window of journalism towards all sorts of political, social, economical, cultural, and even taboo issues in jordan. With an alternative professional vision, and many times different than what some people would imagine.

JO is also a good tool for representing Jordan! For example, in a technological conference i participated in here in jordan, I had the chance to meet a peer from the Czech republic, whom i gave JO Magazine. Later that year when i was at the Czech republic, and when discussing several issues about jordan with him, some information i was telling him were replied by him: “I know, I read it in the magazine you gave me, JO Magazine :)”. its realistic, its not telling the people reading it that we are Living Very Well, nor that we are enjoying Luxury in the Jordan Business, but it indeed shows the realistic view of jordan, and all sort of Jordanians more than a venture pulp in a nox :)

and maybe thats why Jo rd an ian bl og ge rs have always discussed about JO Magazine in their posts, and thus later came, as a logical result in JO's journalistic policy, their care in the Jordanian blogosphere in several features as well as their “Super Highway” monthly section.

re-STAR-ting The Star

2008-09-07T17:05:00.000+03:00

The weekly jordanian newspaper, The Star, had recently had an "extreme makeover" resulting in a very dynamic and attractive new english weekly. in a fully colored Tabloid format.

The Star, issued by Addustour media, is the only weekly broadsheet newspaper published in jordan, and it started in 1993, with an inherited history from "The Jerusalem Star" which was published in Jerusalem ever since 1966 through the 1980s.

The Tabloid format made it able to have more topics around and about, since the small page sizes enable having more concentrated context, and more topics and page to review in the newspaper. and less empty talks to fill in blank spaces in certain pages.

the newspaper, whose price increased also to be 0.5 JD, worths it as its more of a ... call it, weekly magazine (Addustour's press can give almost that quality). Also faced an online make over, with a simpler and neater website on www.star.com.jo

Don't forget to check it out tomorrow morning and every monday morning, it worths it!

Radio Guide Update: Ayyam FM also in Irbid and Ma'an

2008-09-01T17:27:00.003+03:00

Ayyam FM, which started broadcasting today in Amman on 91.5 FM. has also started broadcasting in irbid and northern Jordan on 91.9 FM. and in Ma'an and Petra on 92.1 FM.

Radio Guide Update: Spin FM Jordan also in Irbid and Ma'an

2008-09-01T17:17:00.004+03:00

Spin FM Jordan, which started broadcasting today in Amman on 94.1 FM. has also started broadcasting in irbid and northern Jordan on 88.3 FM. and in Ma'an and Petra on 88.5 FM.

By that, Spin FM becomes the 1st ever private western music station that gets a broadcasting license outside the capital Amman. and the 1st one to broadcast in the northern city of irbid, which has been suffering from the lack of a western hit music station, despite the rich market expected for such a station in a city full of campus students and western music lovers.

Radio Guide Update: Ayyam FM on 91.5 FM in Amman

2008-09-01T11:06:00.003+03:00

Ayyam FM, the communicorp arabic station in jordan, which was 1st decleared as Spin Arabia from the long waited Communicorp presence in Jordan, started broadcasting today on 91.5 FM in the Greater Amman Area. and is soon to broadcast in other areas around jordan.

Apparently, Ayyam FM will be some sort of an arabic hit music station, playing all the latest arabic hits and varieties.

Also about the sister station Spin Jordan

Radio Guide Update: Spin FM Jordan on 94.1 FM in Amman

2008-09-01T10:55:00.005+03:00

Spin FM Jordan, the long waited radio station from Communicorp in Jordan, started broadcasting today on 94.1 FM in the Greater Amman Area. and is soon to broadcast in other areas around jordan.

Apparently, Spin Jordan will be close in style to the Irish Spin 1038, as a hit music station (yes, yet another one!), rather than the Czech Radio Spin (which is specialized in Rap, HipHop, RnB)

Also about the sister station Ayyam FM

Radio Sawt Al-Madina, Dynamism on air!

2008-08-31T09:39:00.004+03:00

It was amazing dealing with Radio Sawt Al-Madina 88.7 FM in last friday's "Summer's Telematch" that the Jordanian Romanian Forum for Culture has organized.

Apart from the fact that Radio Sawt Al-Madina had, in my own opinion, dynamically grown and varied to turn into what i would call: “The European Model of Pop culture radio stations”, with very interesting hybridism of news bulletins, hit music (mainly arabic, but some western in some shows as well), and a big variety of interactive shows, youth oriented shows, socio-political talk shows, and specialized shows ... all at one place. But i had a very interesting experience dealing with them as i was looking for a media & entertainment sponsor for the “Summer's telematch”. Which was after i was actually oriented towards having a Western Hit music station to be a sponsor, based on the fact that Western Hit music stations are way much more active when it comes to such acts and events in the jordanian radio market, and noticeable more likable to have live off-studio shows than arabic radio stations in Jordan, which are – in general – either too traditional and public service-like radios, or too non-stop music oriented, and usually not willing to invest in their listeners entertainment to gain further listener-ship and ratings.

But, fortunately, I was turned down by a couple of western hit music radio stations, including a very-bad experience with one of them which kept me hanging to wait for a response for almost a month, that is when the request to the second was late enough, resulting in a negative result due to their commitment in another event. Fortunately enough to let me go for Sawt Al-Madina, who replied positively in less than 24 hours, and offered to do free commercials for the event (including very advertisement for the other sponsors – i am saying that just to tease the sponsors who weren't interested), and, most important of all, offered to do a live show from location. Something which the 1st radio station that i went too called it an expensive operation that doesn't worth the effort, and something they want to be paid for !!! (I guess their personnel wasn't informed enough regarding who he was setting in-front off!!! I guess he doesn't even know how the whole procedure goes and how the transmission is carried!!!!).

El Mohem!

Muhannad Shahwan and Rawan Khalifeh, hosts of the famous youth radio show "HUNTING" on Radio Sawt Al-Madina hosted a live show on location and radio last Friday, doing a magnificent job along with all their staff from location. And not to forget their promotion goodies that they have distributed for the public and participants.

& by the way, the event review can be found here :)

Struggling, Profitable work Vs Non Profit activity

2008-08-28T14:19:00.004+03:00

Between the tremendous workload at the company, and tremendous activity load (NGO activity load represented in the telematch we at the JRFC are having tomorrow). i am still surviving and struggling despite the over 18 hours/ day of overlapping between both.

The irony of the situation is represented in the fact that the due date of both activities happened to be the end of this week, and for several weeks now i was busy with both of them.

Despite the fact the workload in my career is getting me money in return , especially since i am working on hourly wages now, the non-profit NGO activity i am doing with regards to tomorrow's telematch at the Jordanian Romanian Forum for Culture, is consuming enough from my time and efforts, and even relations with peers and people around me.

I dunno why, but there is something inside me that feels that i should get the best out of me for tomorrow's event. maybe also a reason is the fact that the forum's revenues from this activity will be focused in establishing a public library in our organization's offices in Jabal Al-Weibdeh, to target the local community in that area, especially after the emptiness that occurred when Paris Library (which was even a bookshop and a cafe, and not a library) was turned into a cheap pub!

Don't forget, its tomorrow, 4.30 PM at the Jubilee Schools .. More Information HERE

The Summer Telematch games! Friday 29 August starting 5 PM

2008-08-24T19:36:00.005+03:00

The Jordanian Romanian Forum for Culture, along with The Jubilee Schools Alumni Club, are co-organizing:

The Summer Telematch games!

This Coming Friday, August the 29th, 2008. at the Jubilee Schools – King Hussein Foundation. Starting 5 PM.
With many games and cool prizes for participating teams and audience, come and join us, enjoy your time and win!

Entry Tickets are valued at 3 JD and 1 JD for under 15 years, JRFC members, and Jubilee Alumni members.
For more information, please call 0795959080 or 0788787064

This event is sponsored by: McDonalds, 4D Cinemas – Mecca Mall, Ballalino, Proud and Mood Juices. Official Entertainment Sponsor: Radio Sawt Al-Madina.

Location Map:

The Shashati Show

2008-08-21T08:15:00.001+03:00

The Shashati Show, this coming saturday, August 24th at the citadel. Short movies, music, and more!

Messiness of Urban Public transportation in Amman

2008-08-20T08:06:00.005+03:00

هذه التدوينة متوفرة أيضاً باللغة العربية هنا

I've wrote once before, in another post, on another occasion how did the Urban Public Transportation in Amman became "Worse Than Ever".

That is, apart from much other occasions writing about urban public transportation in Amman, always depending on personal experiences or related people's experiences.

And the story continues, and Messier than ever, and even on the most important routes in the capital operated by the CMTC, and even in front of the management and owners of the CMTC.

Time: Yesterday, 19-8-2008. at 4:19 PM
Place: Amman, Al-Haramein intersection (Al-Kilo), specifically at the Bus Station on Mecca Street before the intersection, on the southern edge of the road (pretty much adjacent to Abu Khader Automotive building, where the management offices of the CMTC are located).

2 Routes pass by that bus station, Medical City – Raghadan (Route Nr 43), and The Western Circular Route (Nr 59).

At that very moment i reached the station, there were around 10 people and counting.

4:26 PM
At the station there are around 15 individuals, a bus working on route 43 reaches the station (which was for the note, 1 of the newly introduced 116 Mercedes Elba buses, and had the digital route display TURNED OFF!), people wave for him to stop, and nothing, the bus continues while passing just by them!!! The bus seats were full, and some people were standing, but there was space for more standing people. Some waiting passengers were upset, others decided to take a taxi.

4:40 PM
15 – 17 people waiting at the station, as some people appeared, and others left by Taxis, far away in the street a bus on Route 43 appears, but when getting closer it decides to get through the tunnel under the intersection.... The waiting passengers started laughing ironically on their situation.

4:45 PM
A bus working on the Western Circular route (Nr 59), which i was waiting for, reaches the station. That is, after 25 minutes of waiting a bus whose frequency is said to be 15 minutes, and the rest of the passengers remained there waiting for the Raghadan bus which is said to have a frequency of 10 minutes.... in addition to another 7 individuals waiting for the same bus in the bus station situated after the intersection, who i saw while my bus was turning left at the round about.

All of this, just off the windows of the Comprehensive Multiple Transportation Company, whose buses were being waited by those people.

As a passenger, as well as person interested in the Ammani public transportation industry and service, and a user of it.... I don't need any more High-tech, i don't need no Smart nor Stupid card systems (which you have been promoting for over a year now with slow progress of implementation), I don't need Urban and environment friendly buses, nor ones on European standards. Nor i need beautiful painting that fakes out the truth behind the vehicle bodies branded catchy-ly as “autobus”

All I want is commitment and respect... without it, all the above are CRAP!

فوضوية النقل العام داخل عمان.. أكثر من أي وقت مضى

2008-08-20T08:02:00.003+03:00

This post is also available in English HERE

في مناسبة أخرى، كتبت في إحدى تدويناتي عن النقل العام المدني في عمان، و كيف أضحى في وقت كتابة تلك التدوينة "أسوء من أي وقت مضى".

ذلك عدا عن مناسبات أخرى عديدة كتبت فيها عن النقل العام داخل مدينة عمان.. معتمداً في كل الأحيان على تجارب شخصية أو أناس مقربين.

وتستمر الأسطورة، و بفوضاوية أكثر من أي وقت مضى.. و حتى على أكثر الخطوط حيوية في العاصمة التي تديرها الشركة المتكاملة، لا بل و حتى أمام مرأى مالكي و إداريي الشركة المتكاملة للنقل المتعدد!

الوقت: البارحة ، 19-8-2008. الساعة 4:19 مساءاً

الموقع: عمان، تقاطع الحرمين (الكيلو). بالتحديد على محطة الباصات الواقعة في شارع مكة قبل التقاطع على الجهة الجنوبية (قرب مقر مجموعة أبو خضر للسيارات، و التي تحوي أيضاً إدارة الشركة المتكاملة للنقل المتعدد).

يمر من ذلك الموقف خطان للنقل العام، المدينة الطبية – رغدان (خط رقم 43) ، و الدائري الغربي (خط رقم 59).

كان في تلك اللحظة التي وصلت فيها المحطة قرابة الــ 10 أشخاص ينتظرون، و غيري يستمر بالقدوم..

4:26

في المحطة قرابة الـ 15 شخص ... يصل باص يعمل على الخط 43 (بالمناسبة كان أحد الباصات الــ 116 التي أدخلت مؤخراً للخدمة، و شاشة الخط كانت مطفئة و لا تعمل)، يقوم الناس بالتلويح له للوقف و لكنه لا يتوقف!!!! و يستمر في المسير!! كان الباص ممتلئة مقاعده و لكن كان يوجد مكان للوقوف فيه.

بعض المنتظرين انزعجوا بحكم طول انتظارهم.و البعض قرر ان يركب تكسي.

4:40

في المحطة قرابة الـ 15-17 شخص بحكم أن أناس جدد أتوا لينتظروا الباص بينما آخرين غادروا. يبدوا في الأفق باص قادم يعمل على الخط 43، و لكن، و عند اقترابه قرر أن يدخل في النفق، و بالتالي لم يكن في وسع المنتظرين في المحطة سوى الضحك سخرية........... الله بعين، اللي استنى نص ساعة بستنى ساعة.

4:45

يأتي باص يعمل على خط الدائري الغربي (59) الذي كنت أنتظره، بعد 25 دقيقة انتظار لباص يحكى أن تردده كل 15 دقيقة، و بقي ركاب خط رغدان الذي يحكى أن تردد باصاته كل 10 دقائق في المحطة ينتظرونه ... كما كان غيرهم (حوالي الـ 7 أشخاص) ينتظرونه أيضاً في المحطة التي بعد التقاطع، و الذين شاهدتهم أثناء دوران الباص الذي ركبته للدوار.

كل ذلك حدث أمام مكاتب إدارة الشركة التي ينتظر أولائك الناس باصاتها.

كـــراكب و كشخص مهتم بالنقل العام في عمان و مستخدم له ... لم أعد أريد تكنولوجيا، لا أريد بطاقات ذكية و لا غبية (تعملون لها دعايات لأكثر من عام على الفاضي)، لا أريد باصات حديثة و لا صديقة للبيئة و لا حسب المواصفات الأوروبية. و لا دهان خارجي لائق و مزيف للحقائق المخفية وراء الهياكل مع إسم تجاري للأوتوباص!

كل ما أريد هو التزام و حياء ... فبدونه لا فائدة من كل ما سبق.

McDonalds UJ reopens, with Free Internet :)

2008-08-17T14:34:00.001+03:00

After the fire incident that happened with McDonalds, University of Jordan branch last march. McDonalds seemed to renovate the entire place and make some major changes in it.

Last week, the branch has reopened its doors, and with new added values for its customers, especially taking into consideration the place where this branch is located and the concentration of students in the area. So they have installed several PCs with Free internet :) also, Free wireless will be available soon.

So I guess in several days, we will be on the map of the world wide "McWireless" and its also not a McInternet cafe like this one in Sweden, where they charge 1$ for 30 Minutes (will, this was back in 2003)

The new arrangement in the store is pretty nice as well, though i didnt like the big LCD thingy with Rotana Clip on it... I felt it a sort of a copy cat!

Smart move McDonalds Jordan, and i'd for sure prefer a McWireless than a McDoos Mr moey :D

HM Queen Rania wraps up her YouTube Videos Series

2008-08-13T13:34:00.000+03:00

Queen Rania have deployed, as promised a new video to comment on the responses and reactions on the previous video casts was published by her majesty on August 12th.

This video is the last one out of her series of Videos, in which she aimed to discuss and breakdown Stereotypes of Arabs, which are available through her Youtube channel here.

Radio Guide Update: Amen FM in Aqaba on 89.5 FM

2008-08-09T13:11:00.002+03:00

Radio Amen FM (أمن FM), The police department's radio station has started broadcasting on the wave of 89.5 FM in the southern city port of Aqaba

Romanian police to enhance their public image, with PhotoModels :)

2008-08-07T18:05:00.000+03:00

Yes, the romanian police, along with PROLEX (The National Romanian Syndicate of Police Officers), are launching an image enhancement campaign for the Romanian police. Part of this, is a calendar, where they used photos of models dressed in Police Uniforms ... or well, sexy police uniforms :)

take a look:

The Mahjoob exhibition starting today

2008-08-03T10:37:00.000+03:00

Starting today, August 3, 2008 at the City Hall - Ras Al-Ein. Opposite to Al-7oot for wheels maintenance :D

Low Quality Music in the background of Jordanian shops and stores

2008-08-03T07:53:00.001+03:00

I wanted to talk about this since, over a year now! I was just not compiling it too well! Though all of us, young and old, males and females, suffer from this all over the place, and in Amman in particular, where hyper markets and brand stores and shops are spreading like mashrooms.

I have been always (in general) annoyed by the quality of music being aired in the background of shops around town. And we are talking about big fat shops, some very popular among people, some very rich and classy, bad music selected by some sassy sleazy employees most probably, and maybe sometimes even selected after an argue and stopped and yet changed again by another employee and so on, just like if they're in their own bedroom arguing which song is nicer!

Examples?!
Lets see,
most of the clothes and wears brandshops around sweifieh and mecca mall have a problem in the quality of music being aired in the background as it comes to measures of:
Sound Quality: despite most of them are equipped with high-tech sound systems, but they just get screwed up by missing up with the equalizers!

Music Quality: especially the music content, as a lot of them air “dirty versions” of hiphop and R'n'B songs. This was observed even in stores where different ages and classes of people would regularly shop, just like “Max” and “Centerpoint” for example, as well as depending on the employees tastes!

Employees Taste Vs Brand Taste: Probably this is the cause of all the problems, especially the one listed above. As some employees, just out of the “cool” deep inside them, decide to have an un-cleaned version of an album by eminem, and that album happen to be also an underground unreleased one (cool enough out of his coolness!), and have that in .... a children wear shop!!!! or even a young ladies accessories shop! Or some Linkin Park in an old ladies formal wear shop from an italian brand!!!!
See, this is how bad things might go in some shops. And of course, things vary just depending on the employee on the shift and his/her mood!

Sound Volume: Loud Volume in particular. In some shops you can just feel that you are in a club!! well, ok, maybe the clothes at Cool Cat or Pull and Bear at city mall are just the ones for clubbing, but you should SHOUT to tell one of the employees about ur size!!!!!

I just can't count the cases and shops of improper sound/shop combinations around town. And the bad soundtracks of our shopping experience.

There are some positive things lately around and about, for example, and after AZADEA group opened Virgin Mega store in City Mall – Amman. They seemed to supply most of the brandshops ran by AZADEA group with precompiled music collections and mixes. That was easy to observe as you can even get to hear the same music combination at more than one shop ran by AZADEA, and you can even get to guess what track is next :D

Cozmo supermarket has also a predefined music combination, integrated with offers announcements, and even closing hours announcements being aired in the background, all of this at a controlled volume, and a well selected list of tracks that cope with the place's atmosphere and customers' expected music genres.

Radio is VERY absent from our shopping soundtracks. And I mean VERY! As the only place where i have mentioned to have radio being aired in the background is Al Ahlyyah Plaza Superstores in Shmeisani, they always have Mood FM on.

Even Smartbuy, who has a weekly show Live from the store on Radio Rotana, DOESN'T have Radio Rotana on, they even have a totally different music genre aired even!!

Why aren't radio stations marketing people going on this track!! or is it that they consider marketing related only to have sponsorships and how much to repeat ads per hour! Hint hint Strategic long-term marketing plans!
Even in small local radio stations in europe, just like the ones in the town I live in romania, some radio stations get relations with some local supermarkets to have their radio station aired in their shop (or shops in case of a chain of 3 supermarkets for example), and in return the radio station guarantees not having any marketing deals with other competitive supermarkets.

This is just an example of 10s others that can be implemented in getting more listener-ship and presence for a certain station or another in the market. Like for example having door radio stickers announcing the customers that they can enjoy their shopping experience along with Radio XYZ. (much more smarter than having a simple computer printed ad on 5 shopping carts i guess!). Some radio stations can make efforts enriching the shops sound equipments just for the sake of having the radios in that shop fixed on their radio station! (hint hint: Most of our lovely jordanian Radios' transmissions cannot be received inside most of the Malls)

I mean! Can't those radio guys just scratch their minds or what! There is a lot of potential in the market since the listener ship as statistics show or still less than 50% on daily basis... and can't they just benefit of the fact that ads in printed media are not reaching everyone like radio, despite the fact that audio-ads are still 10 times less than printed ads!

I guess i will open my own consultations house to teach those guys in the market my stupid ideas and charge them some grands! And on the side have a radio station where i would implement my ideas and rock all the other stations down :D

The opera under the stars ending with a shooting of 6 in Amman down-town

2008-07-17T19:44:00.001+03:00

Yesterday, They National Music Conservatory represented by Amman Symphony Orchestra and the Choir of the Holy Spirit University / Al-Kaslik / Lebanon had a wonderful orchestral and opera evening in their performance at the Roman Theater - Downtown Amman.

The evening organized by the National Music Conservatory and the Greater Amman Municipality featured orchestral performances by Amman Symphony Orchestra, as well as Opera performances by Jordanian-Armenian and Lebanese opera singers (including a very interesting performance of arabic opera translated from "Sebastian and Sebastiana"), and an awesome Choir performance.

The evening which was performed by almost the same performance as last year's Camena Burana (since Cairo Symphony orchestra didn't participate in this one). but didn't have as much reputation as the one last year, since the number of attendants was around 800 people (in comparison, last year's performance got almost 2000 attendants).
Despite that, the performance was as much of a pleasant experience as the last one.

VIP guest didn't include more than the mayor, who is a classic music lover if you dont know, and a couple of ambassadors. maybe the fact that there weren't that much VIP guests turned into a fact the less security personnel representation in the area surrounding the venue. There were police men at the venue, but not that much in comparison to last year's performance in the area surrounding the venue.

After the end of the performance around 10:15 PM, and after the end of the performance, the people as well as the performance leaders made their way out to leave. a part of the people moved towards the east to the new Raghadan Terminal (which was used as a parking lot for the event by the way!). and a part moved towards the west, those included the performance participants, and the Choir who left to ride into the 2 buses parked at the point marked in RED in this photo.

That is, when an 18 year old boy, named "Tha'er AbdelKader Al-Wohedee" ثائر عبدالقادر الوحيدي, resident of Baqaa refugee camp, and a holder of a suit-file of 2 theaft cases, appeared holding a pistol and started shooting on the students getting into the bus, causing injury to 4 students from the Lebanese choir, the bus driver, an a Palestinian tourist passing by the street.

After that, the teenager started running, when the people in the streets started running over him, as well as a couple of police men. and the teenager kept running until he reached near to the Raghadan Terminal's traffic light (Blue square in map). Where he shut his self.

My self was at that time in a Taxi, that i have picked with my mum from the traffic light, after spending around 10 minutes in the Raghadan Terminal Area without any empty taxi appearing. I heard through the window something that sounded like a small fireworks (I even thought some children were playing), and after that around 7 -8 people running in different areas of the street, and when looking back, there was someone lying on the street.

The police has apparently closed the area until a late hour last night after the incident, but i personally thing the representation of police forces should have been wider in the area surrounding the venue like in other similar occasions and performances that are being held in the roman theater. and notice in the map how far did the attacker run, with only 2 police going for him (out of which one was crossing the street from the other side and passed in front of the taxi i was in).

So ... what actually happened WAS NOT a Tourist shouting (like S O M E resources said), and victims weren't all Lebanese (like other resources said)! Local news resources on the other hand covered the incident pretty well. but what i most hated, was Reuters assumption (or resource's assumption) that the attacker had suspected the Lebanese musicians were Israelis.... where do they get those assumption when the attacker is in a critical situation in the hospital!!!

I feel sad for what happened last night, and i feel sad, and send my apology as a Jordanian to the choir of the Holy Spirit University / Al-Kaslik and its members who had their 3rd performance in Jordan last night, and whom i am very sure will be coming back to enrich us with their wonderful voices again and again for a 4th, 5th and 10th time even.

related posts can be found by Naseem Tarawneh, Natasha Tynes, and Jad Madi

n@simjo featured live on Beat FM

2008-07-15T15:54:00.002+03:00

Hear me live on the Beat Breakfast show this Thursday, the 17th of July at 8 AM, on Beat 102.5 FM. Talking about my blog, and its audio media orientation and focus on the Jordanian radio market.

Photos from Diana Krall's Last night in Amman

2008-07-09T20:22:00.002+03:00

Just awesome :)
A. W. E. S. O. M. E.

everything, the setup, the place overlooking all Amman, the big meteorite crossing Amman's sky at 8.15 PM before it started, the performance, the music, the voice, the breeze, Diana's respect to the call of prayers and her pause of performance for that (which i have never seen in any arab artists performances). everything , everything, everything :)

Some photos from Reuters Pictures via DayLife says it all. (Click on Photos for sources)

and last but not least , a photo of the audience, in which i was missed by only 1 seat ... 1 seat and i could have been on photo from Reuters :(

More Here by Naseem Tarawneh
More "REAL" photos here as well

Dabouq's peaches and apricots are the best!

2008-07-06T18:20:00.000+03:00

Yes, Dabouq's peaches and apricots are the best I have ever tasted. Mouth watering, tasty, and so ... naturally ... unfake! (like the products available around in the market).

Why do those fat money people buying and building in Dabouq are wasting those pleasurably amazing trees, and building hotel-sized villas to live in them ... alone!

some of them care only about having more and more cement, more and more rocks ... like if they are burying their selves alive!

Others might add to that a forest of palm trees! Palm trees are not for dabouq!!! Go have a villa in Azraq or Mafraq or Ma'an, and put palm trees there!

Just take a look on how many trees were (or could have been if they werent), in place of just several villas around Dabouq.

Anyway, in case you pass by there anytime, and see those kids selling their products, stop by and grap some from them, they are awesome, and half the price of the fake products at hypermarkets. You need to support those locales against the temptation of selling their lands to multi-millionaires.

Romanian Rumble #2 - Telecom

2008-06-29T16:20:00.001+03:00

After Romanian Rumble #1 - Elections .. here comes number 2 :)

Telecommunication in romania have been always terrible, ever since the 80s when, according to my parents, you had to wait for hours to get an international phone call initiated, and until now. Where the tariffs are very high, the service is bad, and the customer is not always right, and maybe not right at all sometimes!

In romania, there are currently 4 mobile phone operators, and 2 fixed phone operators.
The 4 mobile phone operators are: divided into 3 GSM Operators: the international brands Orange and Vodafone, and the regional operator cosmote (part of the greek OTE group). And 1 CDMA operator: Zapp Mobile.

The 2 fixed telephony operators are the legacy Romtelecom, which have been taken over by the greek OTE group during privatization. And the newer RDS-Link.

The 2 giants in GSM, Vodafone and orange, and ever since the starting days of GSM life in romania, when they were called Connex and Dialog respectively, weren't in that much of a concurrency! That is, unless marketing departments at those 2 companies call copy-cat-ing concurrency!

Both operators, had always had, and still have, pretty much of similar packages, promotions, and even tariffs! And tariffs are still pretty high, especially when you'd be a prepaid customer! And the prices are pretty similar that you'd think that they might even increase the tariffs at a certain time together!

Zapp and Cosmote are the real concurrency in-action guys in away or another, but are facing problems in having a decent coverage, especially in rural areas. Something that would affect most of romanians when thinking that most of the population are inherited from villages, and get to pass by the country side not less than once a week. Those problems caused Cosmote a temporary shutdown at a certain time, when they were called cosmorom, and had only several thousands of subscribers (maybe mostly employees of Romtelecom, the sister company). And got back only a couple of years ago after more than 3 years of shutdown, with much more cheaper prices than the other 2 giants (still expensive in comparison with us in Jordan, but well). And an incremental coverage.

Zapp Mobile on the other hand, being a CDMA network, went for mass-users contracts with firms, companies, and state-institutes, enabling their clients to have in-group conversations and calls for free. And is doing pretty well in this field, but, only in this field. (hint hint: CDMA devices suck!)

Anyway, other from the high prices (as high as paying 0.36 euro cents in some prepaid lines to call in another network!), customer service is very, very, very bad, And the employees responding your calls defend the company's mistakes like if its a family business or something!!! they simply dont give you solutions, they are simply there to prove that you, sucky customer, are wrong, and should be shot because you are revolting against their company's cheating and stealing! Of course, this stealing thingy is yet completely another story, the simplest example is sending an SMS to a non-existing number (by mistake), or sending an international number that might happen to be on their list of “companies we have agreements with”. Where you'd pay the 15 euro cents even if the SMS didnt reach and will never reach, even if the number is wrong, even if an SMS gateway is not that much of a big invention, but who knows how SMSes are transported in romania!

Haha, how SMSes are transported in romania! ... i like this expression :D by trucks maybe!! this year i roamed with Cosmote there, awesome enough that after i got off the Romanian capital roaming service went off!!! oops! Is roaming only in bucharest! Well, only after spending a couple of days in my Romanian home town I got my roaming back. And guess what, for around a week, SMSes sent to me today would reach me 3 days later! I mean, if you guys at cosmote would send our roaming SMSes by mail would be even if faster! And only during the last days i spent in romania i was able to check my credit!!!! Amazing, they spent 16 days trying to establish a live connection!!!
PS: last year the roaming with Cosmote was much more of a better experience!

Of course, tariffs and costumer “KAIR” in romtelecom's fixed telephony service is not better. I dont know about RDS, as i have never experienced them, but one thing i like about RDS is the fact how they turned from an ISP provider, to an independent ISP provider through their own cables, and improved their business to have fixed telephony through their data and TV cable services in big cities, and later in almost all of romania's cities through local existing cable providers as well. And Despite the low quality of their voice services (which are based on VoIP), but having 2 Mbps with 6 Euro/month without any other stuff to pay through their cable networks is just awesome.

Talking of which, networks and data-services in romania seem to be too much opposite to the telephony services. With no-need-for-land-line for internet, with local city and neighborhood lans throughout local ISPs, with cable internet, and with ADSL for those who wants it with speeds up to 40Mbps ... heard that orange Jordan, heard that TRC, 40Mbps for home users!!!!!!
All with unlimited bandwidths of course :D

شعشبونة - لقاء عن التدوين

2008-06-23T14:33:00.005+03:00

شعشبونة هو لقاء شعشبوني يجمع المهتمين والمهتمات بعالم التدوين، تدعو شعشبونة كل من لديها أو لديه الفضول للتعرّف إلى ماهيّة هذا العالم وإمكانيّاته وأبعاده.
و ذلك يوم السبت 29\06\2008 من الساعة 12 للساعة 8 مساءاً في "مكان" - جبل الويبدة

وبما أنه ما حدا باستثناء المعلم خبيزة ذكر الموضوع، و ذلك بعد أن رأيت المطوية في إحدى محلات البوظة في جبل عمان.

المهم ... سيتمكن الحضور، من خلال جلسات عمل، من التعرف على تقنية التدوين وصناعة المدوّنات: كيف يقيّم المدوّن حال مدوّنته، ما معنى أن تعبر المدوّنة عن حالها في هذا الفراغ العام والخاص في آن، ما هو دور المدوّنة على المستويات الشخصيّة والعامة، وغيرها العديد من التساؤلات والمواضيع. كما تستضيف شعشبونة أصحاب مدوّنات لعرض تجاربهم

شعشبونة هي مشروع تعاونيّ بين مكان ومحمد القاق/مدونة خبّيزه
http://www.khobbeizeh.com/

أيضاً يضمّ الفريق رزان الخطيب وتولين توق مستشارتين كما تستضيف شعشبونة متحدّثين ومتحدثات خبراء في التدوين ومتابعين له وهم: مجموعة جيران ( حلا طه، سماح أبو طوق ودانيه الرفاعي)، لينا عجيلات، أحمد حميض، وائل عتيلي، مريم أبو عدس.

Ahlen FM went crazy on June 18th

2008-06-19T18:00:00.000+03:00

Yesterday, June the 18th, between the hours of 18:00 - 21:30 (or at least those are the ones i mentioned). Ahlen FM just went crazy, with 2 seconds of Kylie minogue's track (can't get you outta my head) being played, stopped, a null period of 5 seconds, and back again ... and again .. and again .. and again! until around 9,30 PM, when things got back to normal! (with continuous non-stop music) ... maybe when one of the owners tried accidentally to tune in!!!

Just cant understand when this station will become a "REAL" radio station! What is al-dekka broadcasting getting from it, no commercials, no shows, no interaction, no nothing! just continuous western music and imported radio shows. pre-ordered, with RDS-RT and thats it! and its been like that for what, 3 or 4 years now!! Gosh!
this is what i call "A Mute Radio Station", remember!