The Arab world is fond of big dramas on screen and page, but how will it react to them presented in audio?
It is a response Dubai company Finyal Media is looking forward to as it launches The Basement, a production it touts as the region’s first original fiction podcast series.
Available across main streaming platforms, the locally produced drama is set in Egypt and follows narrator and faded social media star Younan, as he starts his own podcast programme based on mysterious tapes found in his attic.
At an average of 25 minutes per episode, the 13-part weekly series is slick and atmospheric. The cast is made up of professional voice actors who have recorded their scenes in the studio as well as on location across Dubai.
If successful, The Basement will mark the Arab world’s first major inroads into the fiction podcast genre, one that has grown globally, thanks to the success of acclaimed US dramas Homecoming and Passenger List.
A key reason for the regional lag, explains The Basement’s Egyptian writer and director Omar Adam, 28, is a lack of infrastructure to produce such content.
“The hunger is absolutely there in that we have a great appreciation for storytelling. We can see that in television and film and all other aspects of the industry,” he says.
“Why that is not translated to podcasts is because there is higher entry barrier that comes with audio storytelling. It is very resource-intensive and it requires a specific skill set.”
An audio film
It also needs adventurous production houses such as Finyal Media to take a chance on an untested format. While the Business Bay company has produced shows focusing on literature (1,001 Nights), the regional music industry (Watr) and international football (Al Saha), the move to a scripted series was a deliberative process.
“It was something I always wanted to do. I have been thinking about it for some time because I was trying to tell a story that is tailor-made for audio and not a visual story stripped of imagery,” Adam says.
“About a year ago, I presented the idea of a podcast around someone listening to tapes and it all went from there.”
Then Covid-19 hit and like most sectors of the media industry, Adam and his cast and crew had to be creative and work hard to complete the project.
With the nationwide disinfection programme causing the closure of their studio for nearly two months, Adam says production resumed at a frenzied pace with certain scenes shot away from the studio to maintain social distancing. The end result is a more authentic product.
“We almost did the series like a real film with scenes taking place in actual settings and where the talent acted out the entire scene,” he says. “While doing that way is more difficult, it does sound more real than taking a clean sound to the studio and trying to make it more gritty.”
“We almost did the series like a real film with scenes taking place in actual settings and where the talent acted out the entire scene,” he says. “While doing it that way is more difficult, it does sound more real than taking a clean sound to the studio and trying to make it more gritty.”
How podcasts can preserve the Arabic language
With businesses in Dubai back in full swing, Adam and the team are on schedule to complete the rest of the series on time.
It is a pressure he is more than accustomed to. Before joining Finyal Media last year as an in-house writer and director, he cut his production and storytelling teeth on the set of Iftah Ya Simsim, the Arabic version of Sesame Street.
While writing the foreboding characters of The Basement is a far cry from crafting the sunny jokes of Elmo the muppet, what links both experiences, Adam says, is the ability to appeal to a young audience using the Arabic language.
With the Abu Dhabi government announcing in August a five-year strategy to promote Arabic, Adam says podcasts can also play a major role in preserving language for future generations.
“It can help strengthen the connections not only between the listener and Arabic culture, but to also the language itself. This is particularly what is needed when it comes to millennials and generation Z [born between 1996 and 2015] who grew up with western content and are disenchanted with the way Arabic content had been presented over the past 30 years,” he says.
What podcasts can do is present material in a modern way yet still maintain and showcase the beauty of this language
“What podcasts can do is present material in a modern way yet still maintain and showcase the beauty of this language.
“But for that to happen, we in the media industry need to take more risks with our content creation. This is what the younger generation is craving. They want stories that are more representative about what their life is like right now.”
With the regional podcast landscape still a work in progress, Adam says success for The Basement is relative. While the audience figures may have not yet reached the heights of its western counterparts, he knows that each supporter of the show will be genuine.
“The beauty of podcasts is they they have a pure kind of fandom. People have to really seek out the content and give it a chance to listen until it resonates with them,” he says. “When that happens, you will get the best kind of fan you can get because it comes from a real place.”
As You Were
Liam Gallagher
(Warner Bros)
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Match info:
Manchester City 2
Sterling (8'), Walker (52')
Newcastle United 1
Yedlin (30')
Abandon
Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay
Translated by Arunava Sinha
Tilted Axis Press
Ready Player One
Dir: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
The%20specs
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Scores
Wales 74-24 Tonga
England 35-15 Japan
Italy 7-26 Australia
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PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20APPLE%20M3%20MACBOOK%20AIR%20(13%22)
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The Limehouse Golem
Director: Juan Carlos Medina
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Bill Nighy, Douglas Booth
Three stars
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
Jurassic%20Park
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More from Aya Iskandarani
Like a Fading Shadow
Antonio Muñoz Molina
Translated from the Spanish by Camilo A. Ramirez
Tuskar Rock Press (pp. 310)
The%20specs
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UAE squad
Esha Oza (captain), Al Maseera Jahangir, Emily Thomas, Heena Hotchandani, Indhuja Nandakumar, Katie Thompson, Lavanya Keny, Mehak Thakur, Michelle Botha, Rinitha Rajith, Samaira Dharnidharka, Siya Gokhale, Sashikala Silva, Suraksha Kotte, Theertha Satish (wicketkeeper) Udeni Kuruppuarachchige, Vaishnave Mahesh.
UAE tour of Zimbabwe
All matches in Bulawayo
Friday, Sept 26 – First ODI
Sunday, Sept 28 – Second ODI
Tuesday, Sept 30 – Third ODI
Thursday, Oct 2 – Fourth ODI
Sunday, Oct 5 – First T20I
Monday, Oct 6 – Second T20I
The years Ramadan fell in May
Race 3
Produced: Salman Khan Films and Tips Films
Director: Remo D’Souza
Cast: Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Jacqueline Fernandez, Bobby Deol, Daisy Shah, Saqib Salem
Rating: 2.5 stars
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20SAMSUNG%20GALAXY%20S24%20ULTRA
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BULKWHIZ PROFILE
Date started: February 2017
Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce
Size: 50 employees
Funding: approximately $6m
Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
2017%20RESULTS%3A%20FRENCH%20VOTERS%20IN%20UK
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Mamo
Year it started: 2019 Founders: Imad Gharazeddine, Asim Janjua
Based: Dubai, UAE
Number of employees: 28
Sector: Financial services
Investment: $9.5m
Funding stage: Pre-Series A Investors: Global Ventures, GFC, 4DX Ventures, AlRajhi Partners, Olive Tree Capital, and prominent Silicon Valley investors.
Day 2, Dubai Test: At a glance
Moment of the day Pakistan’s effort in the field had hints of shambles about it. The wheels were officially off when Wahab Riaz lost his run up and aborted the delivery four times in a row. He re-measured his run, jogged in for two practice goes. Then, when he was finally ready to go, he bailed out again. It was a total cringefest.
Stat of the day – 139.5 Yasir Shah has bowled 139.5 overs in three innings so far in this Test series. Judged by his returns, the workload has not withered him. He has 14 wickets so far, and became history’s first spinner to take five-wickets in an innings in five consecutive Tests. Not bad for someone whose fitness was in question before the series.
The verdict Stranger things have happened, but it is going to take something extraordinary for Pakistan to keep their undefeated record in Test series in the UAE in tact from this position. At least Shan Masood and Sami Aslam have made a positive start to the salvage effort.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions