In the 1930s a radio set was a rarity in Kuwait. Whoever owned one found his diwaniya turned into a listening room, as men gathered to catch Arab stations through weak reception and an unreliable electricity supply.
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the radio became Kuwait’s window on the fighting. A small station was set up at Dasman Palace in those years, run by Izzat Jaafar and playing little more than songs. It did not last.
Oil money, and a set in every home
After the war Kuwait began exporting oil, households grew better off, and a radio appeared in every home and coffeehouse. That is where Mubarak Al-Mayyal comes in.
Al-Mayyal worked in what would now be called the signals corps, so he understood how signals were sent and received. With the help of a technician from Pakistan he wired together a basic transmitter and receiver, and the two ran a successful test that reached from the north of Kuwait to the south. They then asked Sheikh Abdullah Al-Mubarak, head of Public Security at the time, for permission, and he let them set up their own station.
Seven in the evening
“This is Kuwait.” With those words Al-Mayyal went on air at 7pm on 12 May 1951. Two hours a day, songs only. It caught on quickly: the next year it took on more staff and stretched to three and a half hours, where it stayed for five years.
The Ministry of Information describes that start as two hours a day “on a modest device in the public building”.
From hobby to programming
In 1958 the station hired two broadcasting experts to draw up a plan. By 1959 it had regular programmes, among them listeners’ requests, an evening companion show and a story of the week, all between 7 and 10.30pm.
In 1960 it gained two 5-kilowatt transmitters, soon doubled to 10 kilowatts each. That June it read its first news bulletin, and airtime grew to six hours, then ten in two sessions, and by October to 16 hours 40 minutes a day with four bulletins. On Fridays it ran all day until midnight.
In 1964 it launched a local service and a European programme. Television followed separately, with its first broadcast on 15 November 1961, and the Ministry of Information itself was created on 7 January 1979.
Photo: A Radio Kuwait card designed by Kuwait One over a blurred 1956 valve radio. Photograph by Alex Liivet, public domain (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: Kuwait News Agency, “Milestones in the decades-long history of Kuwaiti radio”, 21 April 2012 — KUNA; and the About the Ministry page of the Ministry of Information.
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