17 February, 2008

Radio Guide Update: Panorama FM Jordan closes down

On a first of a kind phenomena in the Jordanian radiosphere, the pan-arab radio and TV network, MBC Group, closes down its radio station, Panorama FM Jordan, which used to broadcast on 106.7 FM.
Actually, MBC Group was the 1st private company to get in the jordanian market ever since the late 1990s, when MBC Group was based in London, with its very famous pan-arab radio station mbc FM, broadcasting from London at that time, via satellite, and throughout local FM frequencies in KSA, Jordan, and later in Bahrain, UAE and other gulf countries.
At that time, and until MBC Group moved to Dubai Media City, mbc FM had very high rating and listener's interaction, due to its "arabic-music-oriented" European Hit Music Station style. And wide variety of music and exclusive airplay hits, resulting in high interaction from the Jordanian listeners at that time "Despite the fact that the radio station was mainly oriented towards the saudi market, a thing that was obvious in the station's commercials". & things improved after that when special shows was being aired for mbc FM Amman only, and when jordanian commercials started having airplay on mbc FM throughout seagulls. Also at that time, this station was very famous among Taxi drivers, especially since CD and Cassette players were banned in jordanian taxis at that time!

But, later after the station was moved to dubai, in 2002, the station got too "Gulfanized", at the time when Jordanian private radio stations started popping up in the Ammani airwaves. So, MBC Group decided to stop mbc FM Amman, and replace it with Panorama FM, their newly established dubai-based radio station, which was less "Gulfanized" and more "Lebanesed".

The ratings weren't effected that much with the change, that is, when MBC Group went on last summer with having most of Panorama FM Amman's shows dedicated for Amman, with jordanian presenters even, and separate from the ordinary Panorama FM programs. This was a movement in the right-way, and a step that increased the rating pretty high (I mentioned a lot of Taxi drivers getting back to tune to 106.7 FM).. But Apparently, things didn't continue as expected, and the station closed down it local station in Amman.

Currently, tuning in to 106.7 FM, you will get to hear Radio Jordan Broadcasting's Main Service, due to the fact that the transmission antenna was rented from JRTV Corp.

Quite an interesting phenomena, maybe thats a meter that shows that the jordanian radiosphere is not an easy one at the time being.

By the way, I do still consider mbc FM's old days' sound is the best arabic radio station sound i have ever heard until now. & no other arabic radio station running in jordan, or even at the region, at the time being is as good as mbc FM was when it was based in London. My opinion!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a sad end.
I guess that is the case with just about anything that has a lot of competition ..

Thank you for keeping us up to date on these things. The little "history" of the station you added there is fantastic to help people understand the big picture.

Thanks again