Radio broadcasting in Egypt began in the 20th century, in 1924 as privately owned and operated community stations.
As of 2002, there were only 8 radio stations broadcast on FM to Greater Cairo (6 in Alexandria), none of them was specialized in popular songs.
On March 23, 2002, Voice of America (VOA) had changed its shortwave Arabic service to an appealing station for the youth, named Radio Sawa ("Radio Together"), started broadcasting on a more easily receivable MW signal from Cyprus.
Most transmissions, FM or TV, are broadcast from Mokattam hills, as they are the most elevated location within Greater Cairo, to make the transmission reach the widest area possible, however, the signals are weakly received farther than 40 kilometers, which makes transmission weak to the most eastern part of New Cairo, the eastern half of Shorouk City, two-thirds of western 6 October City, all of Madinaty, Badr and New Heliopolis.
There used to be local radio stations which were aired in the languages, Armenian, Italian, French, Greek and English in the 1940s.
The broadcasts can be received by nearby local touristic villages to Marina and very weakly in Alexandria, likewise the radio stations broadcast to Alexandria are received very weakly in and around Marina.
International medium wave broadcasting was gradually replaced from 2019 by internet services, e.g online streaming or podcasts, or ceased entirely.
It used to broadcast stations to the Middle East which were of propagandist importance to the Egyptian regime and for propagating for Arab nationalism.