FM Broadcasting In Egypt

Radio broadcasting in Egypt began in the 20th century, in 1924 as privately owned and operated community stations. Later, in 1934 private ownership and operation were abolished and radio broadcasting was nationalized ever since.

As of October 2024, stations are broadcast in analog on the FM band and the mediumwave, without any shortwave broadcasts. A DAB+ test has been made in 2022, though no regular broadcasts are made digitally.

By the early 1990s, Egypt had only 4 FM stations in Greater Cairo (2 in Alexandria), but the number increased to 6 in Greater Cairo (4 in Alexandria) by the end of the decade. The increase in the number was merely a rebroadcast of the already AM radio stations. In 2000, AM stations (on the medium wave band) started a phase of simulcasting to FM band, as of 2013, only one or two stations broadcast on AM without FM simulcasts.

All the local radio stations have always been publicly owned, however, state-controlled which make them in practice, stated owned, with the exception of the apolitical private radio station at El Gouna resort, named ''El Gouna Radio'' ("Lagoon Radio"). All broadcast media are somehow state controlled, even if partly or fully private.

As of 2002, there were only 8 radio stations broadcast on FM to Greater Cairo (6 in Alexandria), none of them was specialized in popular songs. On March 23, 2002, Voice of America (VOA) had changed its shortwave Arabic service to an appealing station for the youth, named '' Radio Sawa'' ("Radio Together"), started broadcasting on a more easily receivable MW signal from Cyprus. Radio Sawa
about
/ref> For the first time, the state allowed ''Good News'' to start a joint venture with the state-controlled ERTU, which started a test broadcasting for two popular song stations to Greater Cairo, as of June 2002. The two were ''Nogoum FM'' ("Stars FM"; for popular mainly Egyptian songs) and ''Nile FM'' (for popular mainly American songs).

Local stations

All local radio stations in Egypt are also simulcast on the series of the satellites (partly private but state controlled), Nilesat at 7 degrees west, except ''El Gouna Radio''.

Local stations are typically broadcast on FM. Very few radio stations use the Radio Data System to broadcast the station name, but receiving the RDS is very rare in FM receivers in Egypt. Very few available mobile phones in Egypt which have an FM receiver, receive the RDS information. ''90.9 MHz'' is the only station to broadcast the current song or show title, but when the title is long, it is partly displayed.
All of the radio stations are state-controlled, unless otherwise noted.

Greater Cairo

Greater Cairo region has the most number of FM stations in Egypt. Most transmissions, FM or TV, are broadcast from Mokattam hills, as they are the most elevated location within Greater Cairo, to make the transmission reach the widest area possible, however, the signals are weakly received farther than 40 kilometers, which makes transmission weak to the most eastern part of New Cairo, the eastern half of Shorouk City, two-thirds of western 6 October City, all of Madinaty, Badr and New Heliopolis.

A few of the following stations are broadcast on other frequencies in other regions in Egypt.

All stations which broadcast popular songs are mainly Egyptian songs with very few Levantine hits (mostly Lebanese) or other North African.

In the following table, far stations receivable at night that are broadcast on a nearby frequency to a local strong station, are omitted since it is normally impossible to receive on ordinary receivers. Likewise, very weak far stations are omitted. When daylight saving time is applicable to the local time in Egypt, an additional hour is added to the time in UTC.

North coast

Foreign radio stations can be received in summer, mainly: Cypriot, Greek, Italian, and Israeli radio stations, but reception is unreliable and fades quickly.

Alexandria

As of 2007, there were 6 radio stations.

#88 MHz ''Musical Program'' (stereo)
#88.2 MHz ''Radio Hits'' (stereo) ''(since 2010)''
#88.7 FM Radio Orient (إذاعة الشرق) (A very conservative radio station and the only fully foreign broadcast on the local FM)
#90.1 MHz ''Koran Station'' (mono)
#92.7 MHz ''Mega FM'' (stereo; RDS) ''(since 2010)''
#94.3 MHz ''European Program'' (stereo)
#95.5 MHz ''Shaabi FM'' (stereo)
#97.6 MHz ''Specialty Songs'' (stereo)
#101.1 MHz ''Radio Alexandria'' (mono)
#104.7 MHz ''General Program'' (mono)
#105.2 MHz ''EL MEHWAR FM'' (stereo) ''(since 2025)''
#100.5 MHz ''AL-HADATH AL-YOUM FM'' (stereo) ''(since 2025)''

There used to be local radio stations which were aired in the languages, Armenian, Italian, French, Greek and English in the 1940s.

Marina area

Since 2009, the government sometimes occasionally broadcasts some radio stations which are only broadcast to Greater Cairo, on the same frequencies used in Greater Cairo. On occasions such as the official vacations in Egypt. The broadcasts can be received by nearby local touristic villages to Marina and very weakly in Alexandria, likewise the radio stations broadcast to Alexandria are received very weakly in and around Marina.

*88.7 MHz ''Radio Masr'' (stereo; RDS) ''(since 2010)''
*90.9 MHz ''El Radio FM 90 90'' (stereo; RDS) ''(since February 2012)''
*100.6 MHz ''Nogoum FM'' (stereo; RDS)
*104.2 MHz ''Nile FM'' (stereo; RDS)
*105.3 MHz ''Nagham FM'' (stereo) ''(since 2012)''

Red Sea

El Gouna

*88.6 MHz ''Radio Masr''
*91.7 MHz ''El Quran El Karim''
*98.2 MHz ''El Aghany''
*100 MHz ''El Gouna Radio'' ("Lagoon Radio") (stereo) (Italian and English) (privately owned by Orascom)
*101.7 MHz ''Al Shabab Wel Riada''
*105.3 MHz ''El Barnamag El Aam''

Soma Bay

* ''Robinson FM'' - at Robinson hotel

Sharm El Sheikh

Most if not all of them are already broadcast in Greater Cairo, except ''South Sinai''.

#88 MHz ''?'' (mono) – spoken content.
#89.4 MHz ''General'' (mono)
#91.1 MHz ''Musical'' (stereo)
#92.5 MHz ''?'' (mono) – spoken content.
#94.3 MHz ''?''
#95.7 MHz ''?'' (mono) – spoken content.
#97.6 MHz ''?''
#99 MHz ''South Sinai'' (mono) – spoken content.

Dahab

#92 MHz ''Koran'' (mono)
#98.5 MHz ''?'' (mono) – spoken content.
#103.7 MHz ''?'' (mono) – spoken content.
#107.3 MHz ''European Program'' (stereo)

Central Egypt

#89.8 MHz koran station covered Fayoum and Bani Sweif
#101.4 MHz northern upper station covered Bani Sweif and Fayoum
#94.2 MHz northern upper station covered Minya

Internet stations

After the slow adoption of broadband internet, in the mid-2000s, a number of internet stations streamed on the internet. Most have been streaming on a regular basis as of the widespread adoption of smartphones in the mid-2010s.

Examples

* ''TIBA Radio'', Private, Adult Contemporary and Classic Hits; based in Hurghada; since 2014
* ''Radio 5:14'' () internet Christian podcast, based in Suez; since 2016
* ''EG on Air'' (), an Egyptian song radio, based in Giza; since 2009 many stations intermittently, regularly one station since 2019

International stations

As of the 1952 coup d'état, no foreign station is allowed to broadcast on Egyptian-controlled land with a 2018 exception in Alexandria (Radio Orient), therefore international broadcasters broadcast from lands close to Egypt, mostly close to the north of Egypt, from Cyprus. Many state controlled radio stations used to broadcast primarily on the medium wave using amplitude modulation broadcasting, but after the adoption of FM broadcasting in Egypt, most of them now are simulcasted on the medium wave and the FM band since the early 2000s. The state controlled radios aren't listed below.

AM radio broadcasting in Egypt had always been mono and other developments were never introduced. Likewise, the long wave band had never been used.

Temporary broadcast

*As of 2024, '' Monte Carlo Doualiya'' has been sharing the frequency 639 kHz with '' BBC Arabic radio'', and ''Al Arabiya FM'' which started broadcasting together on the mediumwave in Literary Arabic since November 1, 2023 from ''Lady's Mile Cyprus, Akrotiri & Dhekelia'' due to the Gaza war. A similar move has been taken in 2022 by ''the BBC'' to restart broadcasting to Ukraine on the shortwave after its invasion.
*: As of October 2024, only BBC still broadcasts.

Historical

International medium wave broadcasting was gradually replaced from 2019 by internet services, e.g online streaming or podcasts, or ceased entirely.

Medium wave

Former broadcasts from Cape Greco, Cyprus in Literary Arabic:

*639 kHz '' BBC Arabic'' and ''BBC World Service'' (British radio service)
*1233 kHz '' Monte Carlo International'' (French radio service) ''(weak signal)''
*990 kHz (till 2019) '' Radio Sawa'' (American radio service) – news, informational content and popular songs. ''(since March 23, 2002; Relatively weak signal; at first it simulcasted on 981 ( Cape Greco) and 1260 (Rhodes) kHz, in 2005 it changed the first frequency to 990 kHz, then it abolished the second one in 2006)''

Short wave

In the 1960s, at time of Nasser rule, short wave broadcasting was important for the state. It used to broadcast stations to the Middle East which were of propagandist importance to the Egyptian regime and for propagating for Arab nationalism.

See also

* Media of Egypt
* List of newspapers in Egypt
* List of magazines in Egypt
* Television in Egypt
* Telecommunications in Egypt
* List of radio stations in Africa
* Radio in other continents
** Lists of radio stations in Asia
** Lists of radio stations in Europe
** Lists of radio stations in North America
** Lists of radio stations in South America
** Lists of radio stations in the South Pacific and Oceania
* Rock music and the fall of communism (music as a political tool)

Notes and references

External links

The Egyptian Radio and Television Union
(a government-controlled union of national radio and TV)

FMSCAN
reception prediction of FM, TV, MW, SW stations (also use the expert options for better results)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Radio stations in Egypt
Egypt, FM
FM
radio