Episode 92: ARN - Dubai

Announcer: The Producers, featuring the most respected international talent in the world of audio production and voiceover. Radio, TV, film, and online. In-depth interviews and industry insights, putting you on the inside. This is The Producers Podcast with Ryan Dreen.

Ryan: Yeah, welcome to it, Producers Podcast. Podcast, I thank you so much for checking in. I will try and be quick as between the time I've spoken to— actually, I have 2 interviews in the can, but in the last week I got slammed in the head by some nice Texas allergies. It's great. Never had them before I moved here. Now I do. So, well, there's benefits too to living in Texas. So that's good. No state income tax. It's pretty cool. Allergies, not so cool. But in fact, how about a tip of the day? Never done a tip of the day before that I can recollect. I'll be quick though. If you ever get the sinus crap, allergies, whatever, and you deal with medicines, you go and get antibiotics and all that, they say, you know, you should try and avoid taking antibiotics too often, 'cause then, you know, they don't work as well and they're not great to— right. So I actually prescribed to that school of thought, and one day years ago somebody said, dude, go get yourself one of them neti pots. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pour tea into my face. But then I found the bottle version. I don't know what it's called, don't ask me right now, but it'll be easy to find. I know they sell them at Walgreens. Or the equivalent in your area. Basically, you fill it up with the solution, and it's probably just saline or whatever, but you physically squirt it through your sinuses and it helps to clear away the stuff. So if you're not aware of this, I swear it's a miracle, because where it used to be, let's say, 2 weeks of hell as it worked through your system up there, I promise you this knocks it down to like a 3 to 5 day process. Very nice. So If you're not aware of that, there's your tip of the day. That's free of charge. I will— speaking of free of charge, I do have the first sponsor of the podcast/website in quite a while. Long, long time ago, my very good buddies at AV Deli used to sponsor. Thank them for that. But I just— I spend no effort in, you know, getting sponsors. So I just— I get what I get because I don't sell the show. I, you know, But I did have a partnership with my buddy Jeff Schmidt at Alien Imaging. He knows I'm a big fan of all of his products, and so we decided to put together a little deal. Put him basically as the only sponsor of the site and the show so you can easily find it. Doesn't clutter my site, but also it's more of an exclusive deal. If you click his banner on the website, you'll get something very exclusive from Alien Imaging. So hope you do that. You know, support Jeff and all of his products. They are— I've said this many times— some of my favorite sounds to work with for any format in producing sound of any kind. You know, radio imaging, of course, but find myself using some of it in commercial design and others. It's great stuff. So there's a banner on the front page of ryanonthereadio.com. ryandreen.com takes you there. Producerspodcast. Yeah. Next, real quick, because I don't want to give away too much, the Larry McGinnis interview is in the can. I had a blast. It's one of those deals where I honestly didn't know that much going in. I mean, I knew who he was and I knew where he'd worked and I knew some of his creative, but I didn't know him. Ends out, turns out we could have talked for like 2 hours. Just, I would have just said, hey, tell stories, go. And then I could have sat there and listened for 2 hours. What a great guy. Anyway, that episode's coming up next. For today though, finally we get to it. The guys from ARN, Arabian Radio Network in Dubai. We have 3 of the, I believe there's 9 on staff, but we cover that in the interview. I also believe they have in the ballpark of 9 stations that cover 6 or 7 different languages. So a very dynamic group of people, group of creatives over there in the one institution. I believe though there are in 2 buildings as well. Anyway, we get into all of that. I love learning about, you know, different parts of the world, you know, different cultures. But it's like I'm the kind of guy, when I go on a vacation, I don't want to just see the touristy stuff. I want to go into the neighborhoods. I want to kind of get a feel for what it's like to actually live there. So I think people in media are usually pretty good at giving you an idea of what a place is really like. So we got into a little of that, but of course we got into the— their work, radio imaging, the theories behind all the various formats and different languages, their backgrounds, also very diverse. Plenty to get into here. Let's hear some audio first from the guys over at ARN, and then we'll talk to the guys. at ARN from Dubai. Virgin Radio and the Peppermint Experience is bringing— Hey, what's up? This is Avicii. Avicii to the World Trade Center on April 1st. See him perform tracks off his new album, Stories. Waiting for love, waiting for love. Plus all the Avicii hits that you love. I'm addicted to Avicii. Tickets on sale now. Virgin Radio. It's official. It's official. The hit music on Virgin Radio is now even better. Here's a taste. This is Down. This is R. Larsen. More coming up in minutes. 104.4 Virgin Radio. Dubai 92, an ARN station at the center of innovation. This is Dubai 92. Your drive home never sounded this good. This is how we do it. Best show to drive home to love Harry and Pricey. They just talk about stuff like Actually want to hear about. They make me feel great. Dubai's best music mix. This is New Turn 92 Virgin Radio. The Virgin Radio Trending 20 with Miles and Maz. Miles and Maz. The biggest hits voted by you. Virgin. Covering the top sporting events in the UAE. This is Dubai Eye 103.8. If we call, say anything but don't say hello.

Ryan: Out of Dubai, three of the brilliant staff at the Arabian Radio Network. Hi guys, how are you? We're good. How are you? Good, thanks. We're good. Doing great. All right. So AJ, I met you first. In fact, we you know emailed first a little bit, and then we we you know chatted at the imaging days. But you guys you know over there in Amsterdam this past year. But you guys actually had a massive contingent that came to the show. And so, Heine and Vinay, I can't remember to be quite honest because there were like 200 people in the same room, but were both of you at that conference as well? Yeah, we were at the Heineken thing. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. So I was pretty sure, but I know AJ, you kind of were like, oh yeah, I work with that guy. Come on over real fast. Say hey. Then, I work with that guy. I work with that guy. I work with that guy. Officially introduce yourselves. AJ, we'll start with you, then Hynee, then Vinay, and then I'll come back and we'll gather information about the entire staff there. Okay, so yeah, I'm AJ Traspadermi. I'm the imaging producer for Dubai 92 and Dubai Eye, which is the news station here. I'm Hynee, Hynee Hartendorp. I'm the production manager for TAG 91.1, the only Filipino radio station here in Dubai. And yeah, I do commercials and imaging stuff. I'm Vinay. I'm production manager for Virgin Radio Dubai, and we are like CHR station in this market. We are number 1 as per the Ipsos survey, which is done in January. So Virgin in Dubai would be kind of like the Z100 is to New York? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, yeah, cool. So you're the cool one then compared to those other 2 jerks? 100%, yeah. Got it, good. Just double— I just gotta I gotta know where the pecking order is before we dive into this thing. Yeah, we are one of the best stations in the region, actually. We started off in 2008, and I'm one of the launch members of the station. Oh, really? Yeah. When we started off, like, we had like 7 radio stations competing with us. And yeah, it was a bit of a challenge when we started. But now we are doing well in terms of revenue and the station sound. And we are there in the international market, like, you know, if you compare to any other— Oh, yeah. any other radio station in UK capital or Z100 in the US. Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, it's well known, well represented. AJ, let me come back to you and have you at least start and maybe the other guys can chime in. I know you have a large team there and you have a large, you know, various networks, various stations. Can you kind of give us an idea of the scale as far as the staff that works on imaging and/or commercial production? and how many stations you actually work on as a group? As a whole, we have like 9 stations, and we actually are split up between 2 different buildings, and they're quite far apart. But from our end, we work— there's 4 of us producers in this building, and there are 4 stations. That'd be TAG 91.1, Virgin Radio, Dubai Eye, and Dubai 92. And scale-wise, Vinay and I take care of imaging for the English stations here, and Heini takes care of commercial and imaging for TAG. Cool. And you said quite— there's a lot of things that intrigued me there. You said quite far apart. How much is quite far apart between the 2 buildings? I don't know, like 30 kilometers away? About 30 kilometers. Okay, do you guys ever have occasion to be moving back and forth between the two, or is it really like two groups in the same company? You ate, you asked. I'd say it'd be two groups because, so in this building it's, like Tagalog and English, which Tagalog is like Filipino. yeah, and then the other buildings, the other— in the Media City building we have Malayalam, we have Arabic. Arabic station, Farsi station, and Hindi. Hindi station. Yeah. So it's, it's quite a big mix of languages, but they're all kind of split apart between 2 locations. Because of the language barriers, are there— is it hard? Do you find yourselves still able to collaborate with the other producers in the other building, or is there definitely a divide in which they sort of stay to themselves and you, you English folks sort of stay to yourselves? English-speaking folk? Well, well, I'm the guy in the middle, so how do I answer that? Yeah, Vinay, how do you answer that? How many languages do you speak, Vinay, by the way? I speak 5 languages. Yeah, English. Oh, that's it? Yeah, yeah, I speak 5 languages. We don't get to meet our Asian producer that much, but me and AJ, we work very closely and we produce. Sometimes AJ will produce for Virgin and sometimes I'll produce for 92. And we work as a team here, but we don't get to share our ideas with the Asian team because they sit 30 kilometers away from our studio. But once in a while for meetings and stuff, we meet. Yeah, of course, when we meet, we share our ideas and stuff, but their production is completely different from the English production. It's, you know, targeted to different audience, to be honest. Yeah. And the sharing ideas, yeah, we English producers all get together and share our ideas here. So, and you know, and Hany, you might be able to chime in here. Well, in fact, let me do this because it is very interesting to me. How many of you, not just the 3 of you, but how many on your team are actually from Dubai? Good question. None of them. Yeah, I don't think anybody is. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. So, Hany, where are you from and what got you there? Well, I'm from the Philippines. I'm from Manila, and ARN, basically, they want— when they wanted to put up a Filipino radio station, they visited the Philippines, and they basically chose the best of the best. And here I am today, 3 years later. Actually, yeah, I'm hitting— I've been here for 3 years now. Wow. Time flies. Wow. So they're poachers, basically. They stole you. Well, they kind of gave me an interesting offer I couldn't refuse, so yeah, I had to go, you know. Very cool, man. Very cool. And AJ, I know you're not from Dubai. I know where you're from, but tell everybody your background. So yeah, I'm from Canada, but I actually did work in the Philippines when I was doing my internship for a very short time. I came back to Canada and I worked in radio there for a few years, and then now I'm here in Dubai. So how do you get— how do you do an internship in the Philippines living in Canada? I honestly like— so my internship, I went to Nate. I don't know if you know what Nate is. It's the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. I do now. Okay, great. The practicum, like the internship, is like about 4 months. So I was trying to figure out where I could go and do an internship for 4 months because obviously I wouldn't be paid for an internship. And Philippines seemed like a cheaper choice and somewhere where I could probably learn a lot more. So I decided to go that way. And after having done so, you know, did it indeed, you know, give you a less expensive option? And did you learn a lot more? Do you feel like that, that kind of experience was worth it? Yeah, definitely. It was a lot worth it because it was a way different market from North America. Especially just the audience itself. Like, I'm used to kind of being on the same kind of level of like organized. Like, this is at this time I have to do this, and then this time I have to do that. And there they kind of— I worked in small market there, so it was like very on the cuff, and, you know, things could change, and they just, you know, did whatever they wanted to, and it was kind of fun. Nice. I'll go back to Vinay because I'm curious about— I guess give me the bullet points on your background and, you know, where you've been and where you're You know, yeah, you got there. I'm from India, started off in a radio station as an intern back in India and got a job in one of the rival stations in Dubai as a production assistant. And that's how I started in Dubai. And yeah, I have a local Dubai experience like 15 years now. Oh, wow. Yeah, producing commercials and imaging, started off with commercial production. Then later on I switched into imaging. When I started with Virgin, like, I was producing commercials. I'm the only producer for the station, so I was producing commercials and imaging. So one stage it was, I had to decide which one I can work on. Then, yeah, that's how I chose imaging, and I love producing imaging. So yeah, here I am from past, 2 years producing imaging for just for That's awesome. I think you made the right choice. So, you know, for whatever that's worth. In India, did you do radio in India or did you move to Dubai and then get into the business as you say? Yeah, no, I started off with the intern in Bangalore. In that radio station, I worked for a year as, again, production assistant. Then from there, I applied to our rival radio station in Dubai. And from there, from production assistant, I got promoted to production head. Then I got a break with Virgin when they started. Cool. Great. Let's move back. And you know what? I'll throw this one out to the group, whoever wants to jump on it. I'd love to know what a day-to-day is like there, you know, because obviously wherever you're from in the world, whoever's listening, you know, fortunately I have people listening in all walks of life. You know, in the States, if you're a producer, it's still generally kind of a 9-to-5 job, maybe a 10-to-6, 10-to-7, whatever. What's a day-to-day like there as a producer? Producing lots of audios. Large volume. Okay, great. What about hours? What time do you guys all have to get in? We start at 9 o'clock, 9 to 6. And yeah, we're just coming out of a big festival, which is Redfest DXB, and it was a massive 2-day festival which we had last weekend. Adam Lambert was performing, Rita Ora. Sure. And there was big names were there. And yeah, it was— we promoted this whole event for like 6 months. It's like any other event in New York, maybe a Jingle Ball. So, you know, any big festivals. So that's, that's a major event for us. And yeah, they're like 9 to 6, we keep producing. It's like any other market in the world, you know, it's all our last minutes and we keep doing it every in and out, you know? Yeah. So, you know, Hany, maybe I'll jump over to you. You worked in the Philippines. Yeah. so I'm gonna try and keep everybody straight in my head. Give me, give me a major difference between the Philippines and what you, you know, witnessed there as far as the work environment and the way things went. to Dubai and your major network there? Well, back in the Philippines, for me it was all about just imaging, creating funny stuff or anything station-related. Here, I had to adjust big time because I had to really make commercials. I had to be a production house for commercials. And at the same time, I have to create some imaging stuff. So it's a big challenge. I had to adjust big time. So before, I would like come in at 8 in the morning and then I'd go home at like, I don't know, 9 PM just to catch up. 'Cause I wasn't used to doing that much work. Yeah. 'Cause I was just focused more on imaging stuff, station-related promos, not commercials. 'Cause here it's all— I mean, most of the commercials here are in English, so I had to translate them to Tagalog or Filipino, so That was a big challenge. So if, let's say, in the day there would be like, let's say, 100 commercials, I'd have to translate all of them and make them into Filipino commercials. Wow, so the translation might take as long as any other aspect of making the commercial. Yeah, and that's where the, you know, the cultural differences come in because obviously I can't translate word for word. So when I do, it's gonna be like, they're gonna say, why did you word it this way? So I'm like, Because that's what it means in English. And then they'd say, no, that's not what it means. Yes, it is. So basically, you get the gist there. Like, there's gonna be back and forth banter between the English guys or even some of the Indian guys and the Filipino guys. So yeah, it was a big, big challenge for me. Wow. It seems, you know, I personally don't have any idea what it's like to work in a place, but I mean, you guys are effectively communicating on 9 stations to by my count here, at least 7 languages. Is that true? Is it 7? 6 languages? 7 languages? Yeah, more or less. Yeah. And everyone, I mean, honestly, we all know this in radio. If you want to be good, if you want people to come back, you have to be authentic. So I guess I'm leading this to, are there then staffs of people that are genuine, what's the right word? originally spoke all of those languages, that were from those places, that are there to say, hey, you from India, you just produced that Farsi or whatever commercial incorrectly. You know what I mean? Like, what's the checks and balances like? For Tagalog or for Filipino, I know when it's not produced by a Filipino. So yeah, I'd flag that. Yeah, and then I'd reproduce it for free. It'd be Google translated. Yeah, basically they would use Google Translate and then they would have like any regular Filipino say, hey you, you can speak Filipino, so you voice this. So even if that guy doesn't have any practice or any training in doing voice commercials, then you know there's a problem there. Yeah. Vinay, maybe you can speak on that as well since you do, you speak multiple languages, but you know, each station that targets a different audience in a different language, How much attention is there placed on authenticity and who is there to kind of run checks and balances on the various languages? You're talking about commercials or imaging? You know what, honestly, I'm talking about both, but I guess stationality, if that's a term you guys throw around, that would be what I was referring to. Yeah, commercials-wise, we get a lot of accents voiced by agencies and things like that. Most of the spots which is not good, we flag that and we will produce that in-house. So you'll take an agency spot and say, nope, sorry, that will not air like this, and you'll redo it? Yeah, we'll redo it. And we say that, we will not say that there's something wrong with the spot. We will say that we can do better. We can do better. Then we'll say that we'll give a better product for free. That's how we do it and we present to them. And most of the clients, they are okay with it. They will say, okay, that sounds great, put it on. Again, it depends upon different clients here. There are different clients are very adamant and they will say, yeah, this is what I want this to be. You should put it on. But in that cases, yeah, we don't, you know, we had to go back to our sales and all those, like get the approvals done and things like that. But most of the cases, clients are, if when we produce a quality ad for them, they will go with our product, you know? So— Yeah, yeah, no, and I understand that too. I guess that's actually why your company went out and found the best from each language. I'm sure they did it for each because now not only will they have authentic sounding stations, but they'll have a sales tool. Yeah, absolutely. And in terms of the lineup concerned as well, on-air point of view, we have different nationalities on air. It's not just one nationality. Like we have Australian breakfast guy and Kojak from US and a British producer. There are 220 nationalities living and working in Dubai. So, wow. So if you listen to our radio station, it sounds multi— Multicultural. Multicultural platform, kind of. Yeah. And it has to, I guess, according to that market, that's really what it dictates. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Let me throw this one at you and really I'm gonna throw it at the entire group of 3 and whoever wants to jump on it. Something about your work environment that would surprise people, especially people from outside of Dubai. Well, in my world, in Philippines and the Filipino world, I'm not used to like doing everything. When I say everything, I'm like from scripting to, you know, like how the station should go. Yeah, stuff like that. So in other words, there's more to do in your job in Dubai than there was over there, and that was a little surprising. Yeah, like I remember when they were setting up TAG, they were like asking me about technical stuff. You know, like wiring and stuff. Like, I'm not a— I'm not an engineer, you know, I'm a producer, man. So yeah, that was one of them. And software, we were— when I got here, they were using— we were using Dalet. Yeah, we were using that. Yeah, Dalet. So I'm not used to that, so I had to learn it. I think they say Dalet here. Oh, Dalet. Okay, Dalet. But whatever, no, it might be Dalet where you are, it doesn't matter. So That, that is an automation system, right? Yeah. So then what did you demand the moment that you were able to demand something new? Pro Tools? Audition? Where'd you guys all go? Well, I was working on Audition, so basically I'm still working on Pro Tools. So yeah, I'm still on Audition. Okay. I guess I was gonna get to the, kind of the tools of the trade and the software and all that, but I am curious. It sounds like they did a lot of building of that network, especially when some of you had originally gotten there, whether it be 2 years ago, 3, 4, whatever. Were you guys able to walk in and say, all right, I'm here, I would like, you know, this equipment, you know, this software, these computers, that kind of thing? Yeah, that's actually when I came here about 15, 16 months ago, and they just told me, give us your wish list and we'll see what we can do about it. And basically everything that I asked for on my wish list is what I got. So I got a brand new Mac with Pro Tools 11. I'm now on 12. And then some cool speaker stands, and yeah, it was pretty awesome. And, and the Platinum Waves bundle that I wanted too. So yeah, excellent. Are you guys all on Pro Tools? No, I'm not yet. I'm gonna transfer. Okay, so I heard you say that you were on Audition still, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how come you're moving over to Pro Tools? I don't know. I've been asking for it for, I don't know, for like almost 3 years now. So yeah, finally. Okay, so basically you've wanted to make the transition. It's just a, you know, matter of getting it. That's right. But the thing is, like, the Filipino market, it's not really about like the effects and plugins. It's more of like the scripting. So I guess they didn't see the purpose of me transferring. So I had to really like, you know, like bang on the door and beg and cry for it, you know. And then Vinay, why don't you answer this and then I got a follow-up, but are you a Pro Tools man? Yeah, yeah, I do use Pro Tools and yeah, I love it. Company has provided with all the tools what we required, really. Yeah, and they're very supportive and whenever we request anything, we get it. I've just upgraded to Pro Tools 12 and my machine is getting installed tomorrow. So yeah, I'm excited. Very cool. Are you a Mac guy? Yes, I am. Yeah, yeah, I love Mac. Nice, nice. All right, we got that worked out. I've heard some Waves, bundles, you know, pretty much all the standard stuff. It sounds like you guys are all set up. I'd be curious to know though, as, as I work in an environment where we have a lot of collaboration and we're trading sessions around, do you guys have the, I don't know, the necessity to be actually trading sessions around Because I know, Vinay, you already said that you and AJ will actually work back and forth on each other's stations. Is that something that happens? Yeah, absolutely. Like when I go on holiday, AJ will jump onto my workstation and he'll reproduce the promo, or he will produce a new promo. Or maybe AJ goes on holiday, I jump onto his Mac, and yeah, we share our sessions. Not a problem at all. And then technically speaking, is there any need or theories there? Do you guys follow any sort of like, all right, this is our master bus, this is the way we will have our overall sound be on every station, or is it the opposite of that, or is there just no rules and you guys can make it sound how you want it to sound every time? It's like the Wild West out here. Yeah, it's like the free-for-all. Basically, like, I have my own template, Vinay has his own template, Hynek has his own template. Like, pretty much everyone works on their own way of doing things, but when it comes down to it, like, if especially for between Vinay and I, I'm able to work on his template and he's able to work on mine, no problem. Yeah, we keep the master or whatever. If I'm working on AJ's workstation, I'll keep the master and all the EQ as it is. I'll never change it. And if he's working on my workstation, he will keep the same thing. So if he goes and he will play around and if he changes it, then again, it sounds a little bit different than my production. So Yeah, right. Yeah, I remember talking to the guys at Capitol. I remember they were very specific about having, you know, because it was, it was one station in one network, so their master was basically the same for everybody producing on that one. But anyway, the point is I could see the opposite with you guys having your own brands and creating your own sound. So it seems to make a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I've been working on the same template from past 8 years and I'm really happy. And our station voice is Andy Weekend Harvard, and we have special settings for that. I've made special settings for that. So yeah, it's working fine for us, to be honest. Yeah. Now, I wouldn't mind, you know, and I sort of actually wrote down this question with the premise of, you know, without breaking any rules, of course, but I'd love to learn a little more about the structure of media there. We've already heard about some of the stations you work on, and you're at the Arabian Radio Network. I heard you call it the ARN. But as far as the market, are there, you know, multiple major companies that own all the stations? Are there still a lot of little O&Os, as we would say here, but little single ownership stations? What does the landscape of the market look like there? Yeah, well, I'd say like a lot of it's kind of like both. Like there are, there are some stations that are standalone with their own Their own companies that own them, but then there are other stations, there's a few other stations that are owned by, I mean, multiple stations owned by one company. But I would say ours by far is the largest. Yeah. So, ARN by far is the largest. Who is your largest direct competitor? GNB. GNB and Channel 4 Radio Networks as well. Okay, cool. Now, do you know the people that work over there? You know, your cohorts, your colleagues, if you will, and do you ever get together? Do you ever talk Converse, open dialogue with them? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I have a lot of friends. We socialize, but we don't share ideas and things like that. You know, it's a war here, like any other market, to be honest, when you work on a CHR station. How many radio stations are in Dubai, you know, that are of any consequence? I know it's more than 30. Is it? Okay, I was gonna say like— There are 2 Filipino radio stations. Yeah, but it's— it's— here's the weird— I'm not— I am used to having like a station be exclusive to one area. Like, you know, if I'm, let's say, in one city, it would be exclusive to that city. But here, a lot of the northern Emirates pick up our signals as well, which is— we have a bit of a reach that way too. I like to try and not just for myself, but give people who really have nothing, you know, no knowledge of a market To know kind of who communicates with who. So as the big CHR, you know, in Dubai, would you say you're talking to someone who lives in the center of the city, or do you, do you try and, you know, make it, I don't know, accessible to people that live in suburbs or, or far away, as far as the signal reaches? I.e., in New York City, you have stations that really focus hard on the urban population in Manhattan. You have other stations that focus hard on the suburbs out in Jersey and Long Island and upstate New York. Okay, yeah, I'll answer this question. Yeah, we focus on Dubai and Abu Dhabi and other parts of Northern Emirates and all. We can't really reach there because of the regulations. FM frequency can reach to certain limits, I think. So we can broadcast to, say, about from Dubai, If I tell you in kilometers, it's like 200 kilometers. Abu Dhabi is 200 kilometers away from Dubai. And Northern Emirates side, we can go up to Ras Al Khaimah. That's pretty much it. We have limitations of broadcasting rights here. Yeah. So we have to be in that limit. We can't really boost our transmitters to other regions. It sounds interesting. Is there another market you can compare it to that you're familiar with? I can compare it to the market like Singapore for that matter. Singapore and Dubai market is quite similar. And I can see people are from different parts of the world living and working in Singapore and Dubai also. So here the local population is just 10%, 10%, I think. And most of them are expatriates. So as I said, there are more than 200 nationalities that are living here. Expatriates, they come here for business, they come here for work, and majority of our listeners are expatriates. It seems interesting. It seems like it would be a little more like an American tourist market. radio market. Yeah, no, this market is tourists when they get in here, they stay in the hotel and enjoy the facilities in the hotel. But here, the primary media is radio and TV is secondary media here. So everyone drives here. So people listen to FM radio station here, you know. So as I said, most of our listeners are expats working here. So would you say as far as the radio landscape that, you know, as far as the financial curve of the industry, Are you guys still just flying high? Are you still on the uptick? Radio is still just as healthy as it's ever been there? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it is. I would say, because I have been paying attention to other markets around the world, and then, you know, there's so many job cuts that are happening. And with the market here, I just don't see that happening. It's kind of actually flourishing compared to a lot of other markets. Which is, I guess, that's where that would be something that would be surprising to a lot of people that aren't from here, is radio is so powerful. Can you tell me why? In fact, Hany, I haven't heard from you in a minute, so I'll go to you first. Can you tell me why you think it is, or maybe not think, maybe you know it is, that radio is so powerful there and it is actually a more used medium than TV? I think it's because everyone in Dubai is always in a rush. Everyone's always on the go, so Everyone's always in their car, and even in their offices, they just like to listen to the radio. So yeah, when I, when I talk to my former colleagues in the Philippines, it's not the same. I mean, the landscape-wise in radio, it's not the same compared to here. Here it's like the number one media medium. Yeah. Unlike anywhere else in the world, it's like TV or internet. Here, you know, it's radio and then internet and then TV, which is kind of weird. I don't know. But yeah, that's how I see it. Now, are you guys as a whole concerned that streaming will eventually put a major or noticeable dent in your industry, or do you still remain very confident that radio will keep its power? Radio will do really well in the future as well. There's a huge growth, and Dubai is growing as I've seen. from past like 15 years. And every month and every year we're increasing our revenue. You know, like if I say it in figures, maybe every year we are 15 to 20% up if compared to the last year. Yeah. Wow. Like compared to 3 years ago, I think Virgin has like doubled their revenue. Yeah, absolutely. And we increased our rate card as well. So it's a It's a market is growing and there's a huge demand. And yeah, we are really doing well in this market. Yeah, that's good. That's cool. Let me, as we round out, guys, you know, before I get down to the last couple of questions, I do want to thank you. I know this is late in your day, early in mine. This has been a lot of fun chatting, but you know, I'm not done with you yet unless you got to punch out on me now. You know, you let me know, but yeah. Okay. I want to go down the line. You know, AJ, I'll start with you. Tell me something you're better at than everybody else on the team there. Better at? It can be anything, don't get me wrong. I'm not, I'm not telling, I'm not asking you to tell me you're better at producing imaging. He's better looking than the two of us. This is the best. I'm actually better at this than anyone in the UAE, actually, probably the whole country. I'm actually really good at photobombing. I am on everyone's photos. Nice, nice. That, you know what, there's a lot of these since the internet age and the cell phone age and then all these ages. Photobombing is something I can still get down with. I don't mind that one. It's pretty hilarious. I think it's a solid skill. Alright, Hynie, something you are better at than everybody else there. Oh, okay. Well, basically, you know, like when you first talk to me, you'd never think that I'm Filipino. You know, like I, like I didn't grow up there. I don't sound like a regular Filipino, you know. Yeah, I get that a lot. And when I do talk in Tagalog or in Filipino, they'd be like, it's like, like I'm back home. Like I talk like a normal regular Filipino. So yeah, I'm really good at that. So there are only a few Filipinos here who can do that. I can only name one more. I pretend to be. Well, see, AJ is Filipino, but he can't like transverse between speaking all-out English and then all-out Filipino. So you're good at shedding the accent, and I noticed that. Yeah. Now, you grew up only speaking Tagalog, or did you speak English from, you know, as early as you can remember as well? Well, when I was growing up, you know, every summer I— basically my parents were separated, so every summer I'd be visiting California. So yeah, this is where I got it from. Yeah, there we go. So you had both languages from the onset. Yeah. That's the thing, man. You gotta teach those kids multiple languages from the day they can speak. That's true. That's how you get languages. Right. I wish— yeah, damn my parents. I wish I had had that. I feel the same way. Vinay, Vinay, what's one thing you're better at than everybody else on the staff there? Oh, that's the thing. Flirting with girls? Yes! Oh, there we go. Vinay is the man! It's actually a useful skill then. Yeah, jokes aside, yeah, I'm good at producing. That's what I love. All right, is this, is this a wildly single staff that we have there? Are you all out every night just dominating, or is it all married old farts or what? Well, I just got married, so it's AJ's, you know, AJ's the only one left. The only single producer, I think. Oh, really? No, no, wait, sorry. No, there's, there's a few, like in this building, I'm the only one. Actually, no. Rory, the other, the commercial producer, is also single. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, and I know Rory. Okay, next. Yeah, the guys in Media City, it's kind of the same. Some of them are married, some of them are not. If I go to Dubai, I want to hear this from all 3 of you, but this time I'll start with Vinay. If I go to Dubai, what's the one thing that I have to do above all else? You have to come with me for a brunch. Okay. All right, some good brunch spots there? Yeah, yeah, I'll take you to some. Okay, nice. Heiney, the one thing I gotta do if I get to Dubai? Well, if you're not afraid of heights, yeah, you can skydive or do a hot air balloon ride. Oh, cool. Nice. There's some— is it, you know, I mean, all joking aside, it's pretty beautiful. There's some really cool— I mean, I know the city itself is really modern looking, but, you know, in general, it's a nice place to check out. Yeah. All right, AJ, what's the one thing I need to do? And you've been there, I guess, the shortest amount of time. Yeah. So your perspective could be different. Truth. I don't even— I don't even know. This guy drives out every night, man. He looks for a reason to do shisha, so he's always out. Oh yeah, like, I don't know, ride a camel? Okay. That's one thing that people do. They come out here, they either go ride a camel or they go on a desert safari. Okay. AJ, I've seen, you know, like your Twitter feed or whatever, and I've, you know, seen some cool pics. Actually, some uncool pics too, when there was that humongous tower fire. That was pretty crazy. Yeah, that was scary. Yeah. anyway, I know the city itself is very modern and large, but is it like there's a barrier and then there's just a vast desert right next to it? Or does it, you know, is it more of a suburban area with neighborhoods? And I'd say to a certain point, it's, it kind of, the buildings just vanish and it's just desert. Yeah. Really? So it does do that. Yeah, you're like, you'll be driving and you'll be going on the highway, let's say to like Al Ain, which is a town that's about an hour and 45 from here, and you'll just, you'll go past a mall and all of a sudden there's like nothing. It's just sand and hills, and it looks really cool. It's actually like, you know, if you've seen the new Star Wars movie, that's all filmed in Abu Dhabi. Yeah. And so basically we live in Star Wars land. Wow, that's cool. Did you photobomb Star Wars? Can I see you in the movie? Yeah, I think so. I'm actually BB-8. I'm actually in the circle, in the little ball. Yeah, that's me. Well, good for you. You know what, you're gonna make some good money at comic book conventions or whatever. Comic-Cons. Yeah, okay. I know nothing about that. All right. So let's round it out. Vinay, I'll start with you. You know, I think you've— well, actually, I'm just guessing you have the most experience in the room. So looking back, if there's one thing you would tell the young up-and-comer, especially in the international production world, in order for them to be successful, what is that one thing? I think if anyone is fresh here, like intern, and if they want to start off with radio, I think they have to get into the building somehow. By making connections with the producers or whatever they want to be. They just have to make connection and get in the building first, then learn things. And I learned my things by looking at people, you know, just doing. Like, you know, nobody gave me any training as such. Like, I started to learn by looking at people doing things and talking to people and things like that. So I would I would say that whoever the young chap, he wanted to get into radio, is just getting there and get into the recording studio and just be around the production manager or a producer. Just try to grasp as much as you want, you know, in your limited time and make the most out of it. For sure. Get your foot in the door at all costs. I love it. Yeah, absolutely. Heini, to you, the one piece of advice you would give You gotta have— you gotta be passionate about what you're doing so you don't really feel the pressure that much. And when you do start to feel the pressure of the workload, how immense it could be, how vast it could be, I guess you should have patience. And then, yeah, be patient about that. And then, you know, get to know your market here. Because I thought, like, being the only Filipino producer here, I thought like, when I got here, I'd be king. It didn't turn out that way. I had to understand how Filipinos are here, and I had to basically get to know them more. So since then, I've adjusted a lot. So yeah. Yeah, that's cool. That actually was kind of an area I was trying to discuss with you guys. I think we did pretty well, but I, you know, just because you speak the language doesn't mean you're a good radio communicator. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. AJ, your piece of advice. I don't know, I have like 2 thoughts on my mind right now, but I think the major one is, and I've had this since radio school, is never burn your bridges. Yeah. Just don't burn your bridges because basically you could be in a job and loving everything you do, and all of a sudden that job isn't there anymore, and you're gonna look at what connections you have. And that's how I got here. It's just by keeping good connections and and, and staying in touch with people. And yeah, it's just, it's just, yeah, yeah, a really good tool to have. It's a good one. And I bet if we polled all radio humans, it'd be well over 50% got their current job because of someone they knew. Yeah, you know, yeah, so that's my whole life. Great piece of advice. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I asked you this at the beginning, but I liked Vinay's response best. Anyway, you can catch AJ on Twitter at AJ Flipside. Heiney, you're @DJHeiney666. Spell Heiney. Spell, spell your, your Twitter name. Delta DJ, so that's disc jockey, Heiney, Hotel Echo India November India Echo 666. Well, I spelled it right, so congrats to me. I win a prize. Good job. And then Vinay says, leave me the F alone. No. And I love it. I love it.

Ryan: Guys, you know what? I felt I hope we took a good journey to learn about your job, but also your market and your lives. I really appreciate your time. You guys had all you all had tons of valuable information. So for the last time, I will say thank you so much for joining me.

Arn Dubai: Thanks for having us on.

Ryan: Let me just jump on to a quick outro, as I know maybe sometimes you don't want to hear me yammer on in the intro. So. You fast forward until you get to the interview or the imaging, that's fine. But really quickly, I wanted to remind you, if you wanted to hear full demos from those guys, whatever they send me will be posted on the show notes page on my website. Should be pretty obvious to find. I did do a revamp, not a full rebuild, but, you know, redesign, new theme. I tried to clean up the site significantly, tried to make everything a little easier to find. Hopefully you enjoy that. Also, I will note, for the first time in a very, very long time, I have a sponsor. It's not exactly like somebody buying time per se, but we each get something out of it. It's a good buddy of mine. He's been on the show. I think even in his interview I might have mentioned— be looking out for the special exclusive deal from Jeff Schmidt at Alien Imaging. Just love his stuff. I've said it a number of times, and I'm dead serious when I say I use it all the time. It's one of my go-to packages for every format because there's bits in there that you can use for everything, and his stuff is very usable. So there's an exclusive deal that you can get by hitting the link. I don't even think we're tracking the link. Don't get me wrong, this isn't like, ooh, more clicks, more money for Ryan. No, there's no money for Ryan. But I want to help Jeff out. Alien Imaging. So you can see it right on the front page, a big old banner. Click that, you'll get the Dream Special. And hopefully you utilize that. Okay, I will have written this into an email as well if you're on my email list. If you're not, it's no sweat. Hopefully you see my site. Okay, I can't talk anymore. Larry McInnis coming up next. Bye.

Announcer: Contact the show, contribute your opinions, see additional content, or simply stay connected at producerspodcast.com.