Five years ago, Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab launched an internet-only radio station in Jordan called Ammannet. The group has finally received approval from the state to request an FM license. With that move, Jordan enters the age of independent radio broadcasting.
The license for AmmanNet doesn't include news reporting, but the stations founder and owner feels that it has enough municipal issues, cultural, social, and economical and sports programming to satisfy the culturally hungry Jordanian public. "Since the new Audio Visual Law was enacted, all the stations that have been licensed have broadcast only music. We are sure that the public is interested in a more holistic approach to broadcasting in the form of a community radio rather than just entertainment radio."
Kuttab expects the new FM station to be operating by the spring. Established in October 2000 under the auspices of UNESCO and the Greater Amman Municipality, AmmanNet has since grown to become a leading liberal voice, exercising a wider degree of freedom than most Jordanian media operations. Among its programs on the Net is a unique monitoring program of the Parliament and the Municipality, eye on the media, school radio, sportsnet, IT in Arabic, book reviews, legal awareness programs
(HAQI) and various cultural and artistic programs.
Link to Ammannet home page, and Link to background on the project via UNESCO. Congratulations, Daoud.
