Kuwait: It was noted that Radio Kuwait did not stick to the expected DRM schedule but broadcast in pure AM which resulted in a monitoring project...
1600-1800 h UTC: 15540 kHz Urdu, AM instead of DRM
1800-2100 h UTC: 15540 kHz English not on air
In 2018, I listened to all Urdu broadcasts available on short wave (Auslandssendungen in Urdu, in: Radio-Kurier 2019,2 (Februar 2019), S. 20-24.). Back then, Radio Kuwait’s Urdu service was rarely observed and the multilingual domestic service was not available online. So I embarked on a listening project to add new observations to my file. Listening to several hours of Urdu, I can share these observations:
1) language (with a view to some voices advocating “pure” Urdu and Hindi respectively): While times and frequencies are given in Urdu, telephone numbers are given in English. At times some English words are thrown in, and even as a non Urdu speaker you will recognise the topics. Example 1: “vaccine” and the names of different producers of vaccines, “social distancing”, “delta variant”, “virus”. Example 2: Afghanistan, “human rights”, “forces”. Moreover people interviewed were free to speak as they would. (I seem to remember that in AIR Urdu the moderator added the Urdu word when a person interviewed used an English expression.) Example: 3 from a long interview programme “blood bank, “donation”, “blood campaign”, “for registration it will take only 5 minutes”, “check whether you are * for donation or not”, “less than 15 minutes...” (actually the same process as I know in Germany), “corona”.
2) religious influence: All the programmes are done “bismillah rahmani rahim”, “in the name of Allah the most beneficent the most merciful”. The first feature after opening the two hour programme is a Qur’an recitation with a Urdu translation sentence by sentence. The second feature is a religious reflection of about five minutes. In the second hour listeners’ were reminded of the local prayer time with an intro and outro in English.
3) entertainment elements: You can listen to some light hearted lively exchanges, but entertainment is mostly by South Asian hit music like tum se hi (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt9xg0mmt28) or na tum jaano na hum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK596ntCp9c). I dare to say it consists mostly of slower versions and titles sung by male singers. With one or two exceptions I noted female singers only as background singers. (This observation parallels my impression when listening to Pakistani radio online and comparing the music heard with the one on Indian online stations and SLBC on shortwave also.)
4) team: There are female and male producers. In sign on and sign off announcements the technicians are also mentioned.
(Dr Hansjoerg Biener 3 August 2021 via WOR io group)
