Houthi control of the radio

I turned on the radio and my ears were drawn to the Houthis’ control of radio broadcasting in 2018. That day, I wrote an article about my memories with the radio and I was shy. Others would see me as a traditional person who was out of touch with the developments that the world was witnessing.. someone who clung to the radio in the manner of our ancestors.

But last year, I encountered an important indicator confirming that radio is regaining its health and dominating the throne of the media followed by the American public. According to the results reported by CNBC Arabia , the weekly access to media among American adults in 2022 was as follows: radio 91%, television 76%, social media 70%, video clips 67%, internet radio 53%, printed magazines 52%, digital newspapers, magazines and e-books 46%, and finally printed newspapers 35%.

The infographic was titled "Radio is not dead."

There is no doubt that this high percentage of radio, in the country that leads progress in the world, and provides and innovates multiple means for its audience that enjoys the latest services, indicates people’s passion for sound, in addition to the lack of sufficient time to sit in front of the television or browse written content.

This fact is supported by the success of the podcast industry in America, which began its journey in 2004.

In recent years, this industry has begun to spread among Arab content creators, and Yemenis have also begun to make podcasts, some of which use technologies closer to visual content than audio content, which is easy to access and stimulates the listener’s imagination. With the wave of dual content creation (podcast that can be watched...audio or image) to make profits from podcast and YouTube platforms and others, there is a complete neglect of the factors that contribute to the success of the content, and benefiting from them to grow the audience of listeners.

The simplicity of the content that makes the audience feel that it is leading them to the best.. and the ease of access to it.. are among the first factors that everyone knows.. After that, the construction is done according to the indicators of success and failure.

In 2018, I wrote: “I had an experience with the radio, before phones became so widespread. Songs would fall from colored papers, and lovers would fall onto their quilts from the imagination of those songs.

One of the advantages of the radio is the ease of listening to the message it delivers. We also studied this information. The woman listens while kneading, the farmer while stepping on the plowshare and hitting the bull, the passenger in his car, the shepherd to his sheep in the mountain. They all listen to the radio because of its simplicity of use before we found touch screens in every hand, and the fingers get lost among the options.

I thought of repeating the experience of stimulating the imagination. A dear friend insisted on sending me a gift. I gave in to his urgent request to leave me the choice. I was infatuated with my grandfather’s radio, and after his passing I was embarrassed to ask my uncle for it, who kept it, so I asked my friend for a radio.

My father took the radio, and one day in 2018, I had the opportunity to listen to it, and I was surprised by four radio stations, all of which belong to the Houthi militia: “You hear the soft voice of an arrogant girl talking about the battlefronts, and open programs about the lessons learned from the Day of Ghadir. They never tire of describing the Arab coalition as aggressive and slandering it relentlessly, and they never tire of describing the legitimacy as mercenaries. As for the beating of the drums of the Zamel, the listener is so excited that he imagines that he is able to go out from the wall, and if there is a woman listening and kneading, she will open a hole in the plate she is kneading in and stick her hand into the ground two meters from the excess of enthusiasm.”

My father listens to the Holy Quran Radio and Watani FM. A few months ago, the Panasonic radio that I had ordered from my friend six years ago broke down, so I took it to have it repaired.

When I returned home, I thought that things in 2024 had changed from what they were in 2018 and that the recognized government had closed the radio stations that broadcast their poison to Yemeni listeners. The government and its affiliates were also able to launch professional radio stations that address listeners, especially in areas controlled by the militia. The surprise was that the Houthi radio stations had increased unexpectedly, and I barely got Watani FM radio with the station switch on and the red indicator reaching the other end of the radio.

Houthi radio stations broadcast more aggressive mobilization content than they did in 2018 and before.

Amidst the calm that the Houthis have been showing with Saudi Arabia over the past two years on the X platform and some television statements, they address the local listener via the radio with a completely different voice: the recognized government and Saudi Arabia appear to be behind every stray, incoming, outgoing, caught, artificial and fabricated thing: the killing of Al-Hamdi, the death of bees, salaries, schools, obstruction of development, and moral crimes, in programs directed at the farmer, the housewife, the shepherd, and the rest of the honorable listeners.

For your information, in advanced America, the radio audience is the highest among adults, higher than television, social media, magazines, newspapers and the Internet... So how will it be in Yemen, our country, where there is no television, no magazines, no newspapers, and no Internet for the people?

Do we have a single strong radio station that broadcasts to areas controlled by the militia? I didn't find any.