Picture the UAE in 1992. No smartphones. No internet. No group chats pinging with news from home. For the half-million-strong Keralite community scattered across the Emirates, a newspaper from Kerala landed on the second day if it landed at all, and a phone call home meant queuing at a calling office and watching the meter tick. Homesickness back then had a very particular sound, which was mostly silence.
Then, on 9 May 1992, that silence broke. And it broke from Ras Al Khaimah.
That morning, RAK became the launchpad for the first-ever Malayalam radio broadcast anywhere in the Gulf. Not Dubai, not Abu Dhabi. Ras Al Khaimah. A single one-hour daily program of news, music, drama, celebrity interviews and infotainment, beamed out to a community that had never once heard its mother tongue come out of a radio in this part of the world.
Two years of quiet effort
The show did not appear out of nowhere. By the account of one of its founders, veteran UAE media figure KT Abdurabb, it was the product of nearly two years of dogged work alongside his friend Basheer Abdulla. This was pre-everything. Gathering fresh news from Kerala when the papers arrived a day late was, in his words, no small feat, and plenty of people around them scoffed at the very idea of a Malayalam radio show in the Gulf.
It happened because RAK backed it. Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Humaid Al Qasimi, then chairman of the emirate’s Department of Culture and Information, threw his weight behind the project and gave a first-of-its-kind idea the official home it needed. That detail matters. Ras Al Khaimah was willing to try something none of its bigger neighbours had, and it worked.
When presenters became household names
From the moment it hit the airwaves, the reaction was something the founders had not fully braced for. The voices on air quickly became household names in expat living rooms. Listeners wrote in. Fan letters arrived from as far away as Saudi Arabia, from people who had somehow caught the signal and simply wanted to say thank you. For a generation of Gulf Malayalis, this was not background noise. It was a lifeline, a nightly reminder that home was still within earshot.
There was a reason the signal reached that far. RAK carried the program on the mediumwave AM band, and after dark AM signals skip for hundreds of kilometres, bouncing across the Gulf. A one-hour show meant for a community in the Emirates could, on a clear night, be picked up in Saudi Arabia and beyond. The reach was almost accidental, and it made a very small station feel enormous.
From one hour to an entire industry
The program was later acquired by the Dolphin Group and reborn as Radio Asia, a name any long-time UAE resident will recognise instantly. Within about seven years it had grown from that humble single hour into a 24-hour service. And it kept multiplying. At the peak of the boom, roughly eleven Malayalam stations were on air across the UAE, reaching well over a million listeners with news, traffic, entertainment and the small daily rituals of community life. All of it traces back to that first hour out of Ras Al Khaimah.
And it was never only Malayalam. The same airwaves would go on to carry Hindi on Radio 4, Tamil, Urdu, Filipino on Tag 91.1 and a dozen more languages, turning UAE radio into one of the most multilingual dials on the planet. But the door that swung open for all of them was opened first, in Malayalam, from RAK.
The tide goes out
Nothing in radio stays still. Over the past several years the ground shifted hard. Younger listeners moved to social media, streaming and on-demand everything, ad revenue thinned, and steep licensing fees did the rest. One by one, beloved stations went quiet. Radio Me left the air around 2016, Voice of Kerala 1152 AM in early 2018, Radio Mango 96.2 and Asianet Radio 657 AM in early 2019 and Flowers FM 94.7 later that same year.
Then came the one that stung. Radio Asia, the direct descendant of that original 1992 broadcast, had moved from its old AM home to FM 94.7 in 2019. In February 2024 it fell silent for good. Club FM followed that October. The station that gave the Gulf its first Malayalam voice had, after thirty-two years, run out of air.
A handful still carry the flame, mostly Hit 96.7, Gold 101.3 and Radio Keralam 1476 AM, alongside app-only newcomers like Home FM and 360 Radio. The dial got quieter. The story did not end though. It just changed frequency.
A quick timeline of UAE radio
- 1966 – Abu Dhabi Radio signs on, the UAE’s first-ever radio station.
- Early 1970s – Dubai Radio launches, broadcasting in Arabic.
- 9 May 1992 – Ras Al Khaimah airs the Gulf’s first Malayalam radio broadcast on the AM band. It later becomes Radio Asia.
- June 1997 – Channel 4 (104.8 FM) launches as the UAE’s first commercial radio station, in English.
- Late 1990s to 2000s – The English and Hindi FM boom: Dubai 92, Radio 1, Radio 2, Dubai Eye 103.8, Virgin Radio and City 101.6 fill the dial.
- Peak years – Around 11 Malayalam stations serve well over a million UAE listeners.
- 2016 to 2019 – The contraction begins: RadioMe, Voice of Kerala, Radio Mango, Asianet Radio and Flowers FM all go dark.
- February 2024 – Radio Asia, the 1992 pioneer, signs off for good.
- Today – RAK FM 103.5 (Arabic) and RAK Radio (English, online and app) keep the emirate on the air, while Radio 4 (Hindi) and Al Rabia (Arabic) top the national IPSOS charts.
Who is actually listening
Here is the surprise. For all the closures, radio in the UAE has not collapsed. It is one of the stickiest media habits in the country. According to Nielsen’s UAE Radio Audience Measurement, around 93 percent of the population tunes in every single week, and the reach is astonishing once you break it down by emirate.
In other words, nearly everyone in the country still listens. What changed is not whether people tune in, but how. The signal moved from the AM dial to the FM band to the phone in your pocket, and Ras Al Khaimah has been part of that journey from the very first day.
RAK is still on the air
Here is the part worth knowing if you live in the emirate today. Ras Al Khaimah still has its own voice, in two very different flavours.
RAK FM 103.5 is the emirate’s homegrown public station, run by the Ras Al Khaimah broadcasting authority. It is an Arabic-language service and the one you will pick up on your car radio right across RAK, complete with its own app and an SMS line on 3535 for listeners who want to weigh in.
RAK Radio, meanwhile, is the emirate’s English-language station, and it has fully embraced the streaming era. There is no FM dial to hunt for. You listen online at rakradio.ae or through the RAK Radio app, wherever you are in RAK, Dubai or Abu Dhabi. The schedule is built for expat life, from the Ras ‘N’ Shine Breakfast Show with Steve Johnston to Drivetime with Peter Redding and The Golden Hour with Richard Buckle, all wrapped around hits from the 80s, 90s, 00s and today.
Two stations, two languages, one emirate that clearly still believes in radio. Thirty-odd years after it handed the Gulf its first Malayalam broadcast, Ras Al Khaimah is doing what it did in 1992, giving its communities a voice and a reason to keep listening.
Did you grow up listening to Radio Asia, or is RAK Radio part of your morning drive today? Tell us your favourite show or presenter in the comments. We would love to know which voices got you through the traffic.
Frequently asked questions
What was the first Malayalam radio station in the Gulf?
The first Malayalam radio broadcast in the Gulf aired from Ras Al Khaimah on 9 May 1992, a one-hour daily program that later grew into the well-known station Radio Asia.
Is Radio Asia still on air?
No. Radio Asia, which began as that 1992 RAK broadcast, stopped broadcasting in February 2024 after thirty-two years on air.
What is RAK Radio and how do I listen to it?
RAK Radio is Ras Al Khaimah’s English-language station. It is online only, so there is no FM frequency. You listen through the RAK Radio app or at rakradio.ae, anywhere in the UAE.
What frequency is RAK’s Arabic station?
RAK FM broadcasts on 103.5 FM. It is the emirate’s Arabic-language public station, run by the Ras Al Khaimah broadcasting authority, and you can pick it up on any car radio across RAK.
How many people in the UAE still listen to radio?
A lot. Nielsen’s UAE Radio Audience Measurement found around 93 percent of the population tunes in every week, with weekly reach close to 100 percent in Abu Dhabi and around 90 percent in Dubai.
Sources
- KT Abdurabb, “Reliving the nostalgia: new Saudi Malayalam radio brings back RAK radio memories”, Madhyamam, May 2023.
- “A guide to the UAE’s South Asian radio stations”, The National.
- “Radio and television channels of Dubai”, Wikipedia (station launch dates, closures and Radio Asia history).
- Nielsen, UAE Radio Audience Measurement, Q4 2019, reported via BroadcastPro ME (weekly reach figures).
- RAK Radio, official site (current English-language station and schedule).
- Government of Ras Al Khaimah Broadcasting Authority (RAK FM 103.5).
