PROINTERVIEW
A NEW WAVE OF PODCASTS
It all began with Basel Anabtawi wanting to listen to a good talk show on his night runs. From there, he went on to create Basel Meets before eventually launching Rising Giants Network (RGN), an up-and-coming podcast network in Dubai that hopes to take the MENA market by storm with a raft of new Arabic podcasts. In an interview with BroadcastPro ME, the co-founder and CEO of RGN shares his podcast journey and his vision for the company How would you describe your company in one sentence? Rising Giants Network is a storytelling company focused on immersive audio experiences. How did you get around to starting RGN? RGN was an idea brewing for years. I had started my own podcast, Basel Meets, in 2017 after I wanted to have a talk show in my ear as I did my night running. Then I discovered the wild and wacky world of podcasts. Can you imagine? My head exploded when I saw all this insane content that exists on my iPhone for free! My go-to was Joe Rogan and he became my running companion, then my driving companion and then my cooking companion (I make really good burgers). I then evolved to listening to many other shows like Wondery’s Business
Wars or Gimlet’s StartUp – but what I truly loved was Serial. This prompted me to start Basel Meets. I met many great people through that experience ... but I wanted to bring the art of podcasting to so many more people in our region. It was like I had a secret that I wanted everyone to be in on! So I met Barry Kirsh from BKP as well as Bashar Najjar, a kung fu-level sound engineer, and we decided to move into starting a network for podcasts. And here we are today! When did RGN become operational, and how many stories have you got out there so far? We were founded in the midst of the 2020 lockdowns. We started work around March 2020 and finally launched on July 7, 2020. Since then, we have closed one major round of investment in January 2021, which was valued at
34 | www.broadcastprome.com | July-August 2021
