Measuring Popularity of Nogoum FM Radio Station among Teenagers in Egypt

This Paper discusses the amount of popularity Nogoum FM in Egypt as it always claimed to be No 1 ranked Radio station in Egypt by returning to listener’s numbers. To make a good analysis to the future and plans on Nogoum FM the paper investigated the Popularity especially between the young ages (Teenagers) which may have different interests and opinions regarding the radio stations and radio industry as a whole in Egypt. Nogoum FM is the first private radio station since being founded in 2003, and ever since is always said to be the first radio station in terms of listening among people in Egypt after Quran Kareem radio station. What was observed that after the appearance of new radio stations like Mix FM, NRJ and new tech music applications like Anghami and Spotify, Nogoum FM was not on the same solid ground that it was during the previous years despite its efforts to be on track by releasing an application and introducing new generation presenters to give the Radio station the right dosage of youth with balancing its famous presenters, whom it was relied on for a long time. The research studied and took into consideration variables like age, listeners numbers, time and social standard as having major effect on the nowadays popularity of the No1 radio private radio station in Egypt. Tested through questionnaire with sample of targeted age. Literature revealed other variables that had a negative effect on the popularity of Nogoum FM like technology and political stability, yet data collected, and results assured that part of the new variables like Technology effects the new generation, while eliminated other variable like political stability. Finally, paper concluded that Nogoum FM has to give technology the biggest amount of its attention as its most important variable that can affect rest of the variable and will be the main variable for the popularity and the continuity of making Nogoum FM continue to dominate and lead the industry.


Introduction
Since the beginning of the 20 th Century, Egypt began its journey with private radio stations in 1924 and it continued with this kind of ownership till the private ones were blocked, opening the path to the nationalizing of the radio stations in 1934.
From this date to 1990s. Egypt had only 4 FM stations in Greater Cairo and the number reached 6 by 2000s. Figure 1. Business Anatomy: The 9 Elements Model Proposed by Elsafty ( , 2019Elsafty ( , 2021 As mentioned before, public ownership for radios started from 1934 and continued till the beginning of the 21 st century as starting from June 2002, 2 new FM radio stations privately owned appeared for their owner Good news which was allowed to broadcast an Arabian specialized songs radio station -Nogoum FM‖ with 100.6 frequency and English specialized songs radio station -Nile FM‖ with104.2 frequencies. -Egypt is one of the most densely populated countries in the Middle East with an estimated population of 97 million citizens, and boasts a young population, 49 percent of which ranges between 0 and 24 years of age. The country has gone through a fierce economic reform program that has had its influence on all fields including the media industry‖ (Allam, 2018).
As Clarified before the state interferes heavily in the broadcast of the radio stations in Egypt to organize and control the content and the multimedia in general to be presented to people to prevent any harmful type of information that may be presented to people.
Starting from 1952 When Colonel Nasser reached the authority, radio stations which used to be the only source of content was fully controlled and no foreign radio stations were allowed to exist inside Egypt.
Most of the radio stations can be found on the FM Wave as there are very few radio stations that can use radio data systems in broadcasting where you can read the name of the radio station and song in the broadcast like 90.9 frequency radio station All the radio stations are broadcasted on the state owned satellites Nile Sat.
Nile Radio Productions is a media and radio Tycoon founded in 2003 and is the the first ever privately owned radio station in Egypt (Nogoum FM) which is also by far the number 1 radio station in Egypt. -The trend of large capital investments made by prominent businessmen continued across all media platforms. As the first two privately-owned radio stations emerged in 2003 following the legalization of private-ownership, the radio industry demonstrated a similar trend of cross ownership and ties to large business. The first privately-owned radio station, Nogoom FM, was owned by Amr Adeeb, a real estate and entertainment businessman and the host of a popular talk show -Cairo Today‖ on Orbit, the Saudi-owned cable network (Amr Adeeb Profile, 2014). Meanwhile, the second station, Nile 104.6, is owned by Amr Adeeb's Brother; chairman and CEO Emad al Deen Adeeb (Good News Group, 2014). This not only shows the cross ownership trend in Egyptian media, but also the increased media concentration amongst a limited number of investors‖ (Halabi, 2015).
NRP Is the mother company that Nogoum FM is considered the first, most important part of it. It is the first private radio station of the country since 1952 as it broadcast from the Media Production City. It reaches about half of the population or Egypt at least either through the radio or its digital apps.
Nile Radio Productions (NRP) owns Nogoum FM, Nile FM, Nogoum Records Company, NRP Music Company and NRPD Digital Agency. NRP activities are concentrated in the management of radio stations, music production and related services for artists. Nile Radio Productions was founded in 2002, followed by the establishment of Nogoum FM, the first private radio station. At the time, a 10-year contract was signed between Nile Radio Productions and the State-owned Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTUnow the National Media Authority-NMA), allowing NRP to broadcast Nogoum FM to broadcast on state-owned waves.
The Management Consists of 3 Board Members Whom are a CEO -Managing Director -Chief finance officer and They are responsible for all the day to day operations inside NRP The Mother Company.
Nogoum FM is divided into 2 main Parts the radio station and the Tv stations which is a mirror for the radios station programs on TV and that makes it the only Radio station with TV in Egypt. The Station has different kinds of Programs with a special focus on Entertainment industry (Music) as it was a pioneer in presenting a lot of new stars whom soon has been Mega starts Like Hamaky and Loay through presenting a new product at that time in the market which was called the single song instead of Albums that was obligatory for any Singer to offer himself through before which cost him a lot of effort, time and cost without guaranteed success.
The Backlog system in the company consists of a full team from Sales, Digital, Editorial team, HR Producers, IT and Sound engineer's with of course the Presenters whom are the station's biggest asset.
NRP (The owner of Nogoum and Nile FM) Radio stations has started its activity since the beginning of the 2000, from 2003 precisely which made them for almost more than 18 years' ago. It started with a huge boom at that time as it used to offer different way of broadcast from the already used one in the governmental ones by using a more energetic and youthful approach and different ideas with young cheerful announcers full of passion and energy who later have been pioneers in the field like Osama Mounir , Jihan Abdalla , Marawan Kadry and Youssef Elhosseny.

Stakeholders
By asking the stake holders some questions for the situation of Popularity of Nogoum FM which in our case was Teenagers between 13-19 from different classes They almost were clear that they go with much diverse and youthful radio stations like NRJ , Shaabi FM , Mix FM even some voted for Quran Karim Radio station. Others from Higher classes said they would go for Nile FM which is the only English Radio station for Egypt. By asking inside NRP, Nogoum FM still considered the cash cow inside the organization, they had not denied there still some decline in the sales arrow but they explain it this due to the world inflammation and Covid 19 Economic effect The Geographic distribution of Listeners are doing great with Nogoum FM as it's from the few radio station that have an ongoing app which makes it reachable in every part of the country whenever there is internet coverage According to our previous contextual analysis the research claim is that the Age is inversely proportional to Popularity so according to that there is a significant decline in the popularity of Nogoum FM among the young audience, this decline is affected by the social standard and geographical distribution, beside The numbers of Listeners Variable which is Directly proportional to the Popularity and time Which affects the Popularity in a way or another. Therefore the research questions could be concluded as follows:

Research Questions
The Major Question: What are the determinants of Popularity?
While the Minor questions will be:

Literature Review
Radio Industry from different perspectives: http://ibr.ccsenet.org International Business Research Vol. 15, No. 9;2022 Starting to know more about Radio in similar communities, it is noticed that Radio is another mass medium, with twin advantages of wide coverage and cost effectiveness. It is dominated by the state-owned All India Radio (AIR), which covers 91% of India's area and reaches 99% of the population through a wide network of broadcasting centers and transmitters (Dash, 2012). While the effectiveness of Radio as an advertising hub nowadays and its relationship with the decline observed every day in its market. Though the paper was done in India, but it has same similarities like Egypt as it's a developing country.
While searching literature to go through our variables and know more about teenagers in similar communities (3 rd World Countries), radio is shown to be less demanded by young listeners: 60% do not listen to radio on their phones (although they do listen to the radio through other analog receivers, particularly, in the car) against 12.7% who tune in on a daily basis or 5.2% who tune in once or several times a week. In contrast to music, interest in radio shows to be occasional, as observed through the participant's responses regarding usage frequency being «once a month» (13.5%) the second response given right below «never» (Pedrero-Esteban, 2019).
Also, the present situation of teenager's engagement with nowadays media in the era of the digital world and their prioritization for the Visual content over the audio ones, the paper was done in Colombia, Mexico and Spain which are similar communities especially the first 2 developing countries to us. Noticing that this is a repetitive incident as an overview in the late 1960s as the popularity of the radio decreased after the appearance and spread of the television which is similar to what radio stations is facing right now of facing a competition due to technology effect of new music apps. (Hasegawa, 1971).

Radio and Teenagers:
The two main target audience groups were teenagers and drivers listening to the radio in the daytime. Since the radio was decreased compared to television in the past times and how they managed to make new approach that make it last longer instead of surrender to its vanishing.
Teenagers are becoming more and more media dependent as years pass by. If it was radio or television in the past, it is the time for internet and social networking media today (Varghese, 2013). Teenagers from all over the world are going on trying new mediums from social media, going away from the usual traditional media. Concluding that a link through highlighting that the problem under study is a worldwide case and is not only local.
An article in the guardian written by a 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern that described his friends' media habits has generated a flurry of interest from media executives and investors. "Most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio. They may occasionally tune in, but they do not try to listen to a program specifically. The main reason teenagers listen to the radio is for music, but now with online sites streaming music for free they do not bother, as services such as last.FM do this advert free, and users can choose the songs they want instead of listening to what the radio presenter/DJ chooses" (Robson, 2009).
This may take us in a wider look for what teenagers may consider radio as an outdated medium and may look to other alternatives which offer the social media and new technology websites, as an overview on radio in the new age and the competences it is facing. as the advances in technology have been accelerating as the digital environment has been evolving. While television and the internet are often experienced as mutually competing platforms, radio and the internet are complementary by their very nature. Among young internet users aged 25-34, 36 per cent listen to radio (Madalena Oliveira, 2014).
The Dilemma of Change due to Technology and Digital age has been discussed since the beginning of the seventies. -People today do not have to settle for listening to a radio that is not exactly what they want. At home, cable TV and VCRS give them plenty of ways to escape the lock-grip of the television network schedule‖ (MacFarland, 1997).
This is not the first Challenge Radio has been facing, They had faced several threats especially in the nineties with the appearance of Cable TV and VCRS then young adults or teenagers have adopted the use of digital new media technologies, as it has been clear that there is an obvious direction from the youth especially the teenager age group towards the traditional know media like radio and television.
As the older generation that lies between 30-45 depend on devices like radios as their main source to know what is trending regarding the music industry, on the contrary we can find the younger generation don't interact with radios that much which they find it dull and boring with no interesting options.
They use much more advanced music apps on their mobiles like YouTube and Pandora. ( Therefore, teenagers are not interested in traditional radio station due to the attack of new technologies in the entertainment business like podcasts and music platforms, when comparing it to similar medium like Television industry and its relation with the Privatization that happens in the US market on a wide range during the 80 and 90 era in the past century. In the context of profound changes in the structure of European television, such a prospect raised concerns about the future of national television and cultural imperialism amid the onslaught of U.S. media (Waisbord, 2004).
Political effect on the industry: As per Prow (2015) a new variable hadn't taken in consideration which is the freedom of the media in the country and its effect on the decline of radio stations from the unfair competition that it can face from the national ones and that one can notice every day in the media market here. Since the beginning of July 1952 and the Country has used media -in a way-to use it as a tool to rally people. especially the young ones.
By examining Egyptian music from Presidents Nasser to Mubarak, the study explores the ways in which Egyptians have expressed the growing pains of post coloniality, which range from indignation in the face of authoritarianism to the exhilaration of unity and shared hopes for the future. The study contributes to an understanding of the politics of hegemony, and how an ideology can acquire the status of common sense through being negotiated, articulated, and contributed to, rather than enforced on" a" people" suppressed. It also contributes to our understanding of popular politics, and the importance of exploring the experiences and intentions of people behind historical and political milestones; understanding politics beyond the person of politicians and the boundaries of the nation state (Prow, 2015).
The study chose this paper as it may illustrate some causes and visions of how the authority's history of how it can treat media like radio and Television to understand the obstacles that can be in front of Private entities. A severe interfere from the country in the market if look on how a look alike monopoly game is existent, although the January revolution held hopes for a more diverse media scene, media ownership in Egypt is now unprecedentedly concentrated.
The state's dominant grip on the media market is longstanding; yet, UMS brings a striking example of private ownership concentration to the Egyptian media. It has business arms in different media markets, supporting and endorsing one another. This diversified expansion might endanger the existence of smaller not concentrated outlets and obstruct them from achieving sufficient financial stability to compete in the market (Badr, 2021). What makes it so hard for other private competitors to deal with them?.

Politics and Technology effect:
As stated by Khalifa (2019) -The Egyptian youth are more exposed to private satellite media, which have no real interest in promoting developmental public policies (family planning, education, health issues), being profit-oriented media.‖, with a more in-depth review on how people are looking at our regional media as per quoted -However, restructured regional media have potential to contribute effectively in raising awareness of the developmental public policy process-a function it is currently unable to perform because of the lack of the required funds." (Khalifa, 2019), concluding that the radio and television providers are in a very bad need to reform.
Which assures the proposed framework after that there is a massive migration from youth towards technology and much user experience that the young ones are after with the look on the usage of teenagers through the following paper to know more of the effect of the Technology of young users. Findings revealed that some smart phone users were using some apps for professional purposes and library-related activities, such as Google mobile, Facebook, E-mail, Twitter, YouTube, What's app, Wikipedia mobile and Instagram. In detail, when all smart phone users were asked to indicate if they use any apps related to education and library-related activities or not, they reported that they were using some apps, such as Google mobile (81.4%), Facebook (78.9%), E-mail (71%), Twitter (67%), YouTube (61%), Wikipedia mobile (49.2%) and Instagram (34%) (Ali, 2016). Those number gives us a new indication regarding the effect of technology on the young generation whom are the core of our study.

Methodology
Popularity is considered as dependent variable which can give us an indication for how rest of the variable will move whether it will be by positive and negative. While Independent variables includes age and listener's numbers as the focus on teenagers, while social standard or class and geographic distribution are considered our moderating variables that affects the behavior of the young ages that the study are claiming the effect of their http://ibr.ccsenet.org International Vol. 15, No. 9;2022 55 attitude towards popularity of the radio stations.

Figure 2. Theoretical Framework
As per figure 2, there is a direct relation between our variable, the popularity and the independent variable which is age in our case as there is a positive relation between them, in addition to other positive relation between age from the side of independent Variable and social standardgeographic distribution from the Moderating side.
Through the process of literature review, some variables have been raised, like the political stability variable and its effect on the decline and rise of the radio stations popularity, as well as confirming that the variables off teenagers and young ages are more interested in visualized content than audio ones. As for social standard and geographical distribution it has no direct effect on the popularity with the wide range of smart phones all over Egypt as Nogoum FM has an App which make it reachable all over the map and these smart phones are not so expensive and it is available for all Egyptian youth with the consuming culture that had been spread out among the Egyptians.
After going through the literature review, other raised variables might be helpful like the relation between being private in a 3 rd world economy country and the way its ruled by taking a look on the past experience in Egypt during the Nasser Regime. Also the study considered the overall competences that radio maybe facing in the present age as there are some competitors that may take most of the popularity like television and internet, while the Japanese study (Hasegawa, 1971) clarified the evolution of radio and how it survived in front of television in the 60s through creating new niche market, also it shows the effect of Technology on young ages and their dealing with media. While, time as a variable have been ignored in the theoretical framework, as per literature it has a passive effect on the popularity, as it is always influencing every new technology appears compared to the old ones, so the study considered that substituting new with old is a repetitive operation that will be with no effect on the topic.
The theoretical framework generating a non-directional hypothetical relation between independent variables and the dependent variable. The methodology used as exploratory design, as our independent variables: Age, Technology, Listeners numbers, Political Stability. All these variables have a non-directional relation according to literature which lead to new variables fragmented or scattered that need further data collection and analysis to test these variables relations and the impact on the dependent variable. Within interactive static panel with respondents and data collection with questionnaire as data collection method with the same segment. Accordingly, a descriptive analysis used to summarize all the statistics, in addition to correlational/inferential analysis to test the relation and coefficients of relation among variables.
Data Collection and Sample Size: Using a non-probability convenience sampling type, from a 17,000,000 population of teenagers in Egypt which will result a sample of 100 according to (raosoft, n.d.) with confidence 95%, and error of 10%. Data focused on the target audience age of 13 to 21 years old, as it is considered the end of the faculty years across most of the Egyptian youth. Questionnaire started with a couple of questions to know more about the social standard and demographics of the sample unit before proceeding to variables' questions of the study. Approaching more than http://ibr.ccsenet.org International Vol. 15, No. 9;2022 300 respondents with the questionnaire from all the age group, yet only 160 responses were valid to use and matches the target age group of 13 to 21 years old.

Nominal Technology
Do you Think That New Music Apps Previously mentioned will take over the place of Radio as a media tool?
-Yes - No but it will affect it No They are different from one another Nominal Technology

Results and Findings
At following figure summarize the findings of the answers of questionnaire:

Figure (3) Data Collection Summary
As shown in Table (2) Nogoum FM is still in the lead regarding the favorite Radio Station among other radio station regarding this age group. The sample also shows the wide variety of Nogoum FM among people from different areas in Egypt starting from Luxor passing by Fayoum and Cairo and till Alexandria. This include different social standards from regular schools in Mansoura to International ones in Tagamoa while showed a special preference from the females by 86% towards Nogoum FM.   (4) shows that Nogoum FM as a brand is still No 1 in the market, but there is a decline regarding its assets considering the Presenters Whom are no longer the favorite or even memorized for the targeted audience, which can be for a lot of reasons like age difference or their presence on social media while the chosen ones like Younes and Eleish whom were Former Nogoum FM presenters are very active on new Media Platforms which go with the youth new culture and direction. Regarding technology variables, the sample was agreed between that the Music Apps will take over the music Radio stations sooner or later or at least will affect it severely.
Based on analysis, whether the radio station is a governmental property or not, it doesn't affect its popularity among target age group or not even considered, it can affect the internal operations which is far away from the audience, but this needs further and different kind of investigation.

Figure 6. Concluded Model
After analyzing the data collected, the study concludes a final proposed model which can clarify that geographic distribution and age as the main variables that affect the popularity as dependent variable. On the other hand, technology is considered a moderating variable affects the relation of two independent variables with the dependent variable.
As shown in Figure (3) Quran ElKareem radio station ranked number #1 listened radio station, calculated on all numbers of all age groups, considering its coverage all over Egypt, while when filtered to the targeted age it become number #3 as shown in figure (3).
Technology importance is increasing by time with targeted group, who promoted the idea that new music apps will affect radio stations sooner or later. Which put the radio stations in a mandatory situation to evolve its digital presence either with self-made apps or in-collaboration with other music apps.

Recommendations
According to the findings of this research, the below recommendation can be concluded into: -Working on addressing the teenagers age group which is considered no sample audience that Nogoum FM is targeting by using new techniques and language they understand.

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Involving new age presenters that are quite familiar with new media like Khaled Elaish and Ahmed Younes whom are previously presented by Nogoum FM itself.
-Trying to get rid of old or out of age presenters that no longer can cope with the new generation or even reduce their presence on Air. -Updating the digital channels for Nogoum FM either on social media or application to be easily understandable and accessible for the target age group.

Future Research
Conduct further research that can give us an indication whether that the governmental political inner interference and pressure on private owned sectors in Egypt may affect their performance and popularity.