Let’s begin the article by simply defining what a podcast is. Although you might think it’s a given that everyone already knows, you might be surprised; podcast culture is only just starting to be explored here in the Arab world. A podcast is a digital audio file, available online to download or stream, and typically comes in the form of a series.
Podcasts are a big thing in the west and other parts of the world, but it’s strange that, until now, Arabs still haven’t really embraced them. Until very recently, you’d see very few podcasts in Arabic and few that were created for a Middle Eastern audience. This is slowly beginning to change now, and people are increasingly investing and producing more Middle Eastern podcasts.
But some might ask, ”Why listen to podcasts and not the radio for example?” The simple answer is that podcasts are to radio what streaming apps are to television. You can pick the topic and speaker you want to listen to, instead of listening to general topics that are aimed at the public and are not especially relevant to you personally.
While you can also find great video content covering pretty much any topic on YouTube, the videos, unlike podcasts, can’t entertain you while driving. Not to mention the fact that video content will drain your data package before you know it, while podcasts consume very little!
The same thing goes for the production of the content. Podcasts are much cheaper to produce than high quality videos, and much easier to upload. The downside is that they’re much harder to promote, especially here in the region.
Podcasts can also save you from hating your favorite songs after listening to them endlessly on repeat in the never-ending traffic you face while commuting to and from work, school, or uni. Instead of listening to Marwan Pablo’s El Gemeeza 10 times on your way to work you can listen to it one time now and spend the rest of the trip listening to a very enlightening Ted Talk!
You can find podcasts for free on a lot of platforms, including but not limited to Anghami, Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, and Soundcloud.
