Radio: memory, resilience and transformation

After an initial study on the future scenarios of radio in Spain (Robert-Agell, 2023), the focus is now on Catalonia, which has its own media ecosystem and a radio sector that can be distinguished from the rest of the Spain in its supply, consumption, regulation and players, both public and private. With 100 years of history under its belt, Catalan radio has shown a notable capacity for adaptation (Bonet, 1995; Franquet, 2001) but is now facing new structural challenges that may alter its future.
Using the theoretical framework of media economics and scenario planning, the research drew from a survey of key players to identify the critical variables that will define the Catalan radio industry in 2030. This study adds to the limited structural research on media economics applied to radio and the almost non-existent foresight production on the media. It aims to serve as a guide for addressing the need to update the management models and adapt the regulations within a context of digital transformation and profound demographic changes.

The article shows the important presence of women in Catalan radio one hundred years after its birth. Using a quantitative methodology, the trend of females in the sector has been traced. A notable presence of female directors has been discovered in Catalan generalist radio (12 women directing non-local radio stations), with RAC1 standing out. An important quantitative change has been detected in the technical department. At Ràdio 4 there are currently 5 women working as sound technicians, while at Catalunya Ràdio there are 6 distributed between central control technicians, studio technicians and outdoor technicians. Most women who work in generalist radio do so as writers. The evolution in the first hundred years of radio in Catalonia shows that, despite having a significant presence, women have never had the same relevance as men within this medium.

Catalunya Ràdio was launched in 1983 as an initiative of the first Government of the Generalitat presided over by Jordi Pujol (1980-1984). The goal was to give Catalonia its own public radio and TV that would broadcast only in Catalan in order to spread the use of the language and consolidate its own media spaces under the control of the Catalan executive and Parliament. The radio and TV stations followed different paths, and all eyes were immediately on the TV project, which absorbed most of the resources. This subordination caused precariousness and improvisation during the launch of the radio station, which culminated with the resignation of the first director. These difficulties were magnified by the fact that the initial programming model, with a succession of short programmes, never gained ground, and one year later, Catalunya Ràdio was turned into a generalist radio station with two main magazine programmes in the morning and in the afternoon.

Although EAJ-1 Radio Barcelona obtained the first-ever broadcasting licence following the regulation of Spanish broadcasting in 1924, Catalan companies did not have a significant nationwide presence in the sector until six decades later. This was finally achieved by Grupo Godó through a radio station —Antena 3 Radio— that first emerged during the FM boom and which within just ten years (1982-1992) had risen to be an audience leader. A lesser-known fact is that the controversial disappearance of this station did not mark the end of the Group’s influence, as together with Grupo PRISA it continued as a stakeholder in the Unión Radio company until 2022. At this point —quietly and almost without impact— it put paid to a business  relationship that had lasted three decades. In order to trace its historical trajectory, qualitative research was carried out via in-depth interviews with prominent executives of both the radio station and the Group. The results pinpoint the different phases and scope of relevance of the Group —publisher of La Vanguardia newspaper— in the radio sector from 1982 to 2022

The article analyses the communication policies of several countries that regulate radio content and new digital sound platforms. It examines local content quotas in traditional radio and the way new regulations adapt to new technologies, such as smart speakers and car multimedia systems. The methodology includes a documentary and comparative analysis of countries such as France, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. It reviews the regulation of platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, offering recommendations to avoid the excessive power of these new intermediaries. Finally, it provides different options to maintain a balance in the diversity of sound content.

The emergence of independent radio stations in Catalonia was facilitated by the strong political and cultural mobilisation at the beginning of the democratic transition. Driven by not-for-profit groups and associations, they spread the issues and points of view of a wide variety of collectives and social movements. Half a century later, the independent radio stations are still there, although from the forty stations that existed in Catalonia at the end of the 1980s it has fallen to the current figure of nine. The aim of this article is to contribute to understanding the current situation of Catalan independent radio stations through a historical and regulatory contextualisation, a census and two case studies. Starting from the theories of alternative and community communication, we apply a qualitative methodology to find out the situation of these radio stations and the factors that affect their sustainability.

More than 60 years after the first community radio stations began operating in Latin America, and under the sociotechnical transformations that characterise the present time, it is both relevant and urgent to question these alternative communication phenomena in order to demonstrate how relevant they are for this region of the world.
This report aims to offer a set of theses that can both clarify and strengthen the interest of the academy in these counterhegemonic communication projects that are born from subalternity. The focus here draws on the interdisciplinary perspective that characterises alternative communication as a theoretical framework to understand and situate Latin American community radio stations as communicative phenomena. They not only articulate processes to democratise communication and information; these initiatives also embody a vision (which is uncomfortable to the existing order) of how to understand and operate the media.

This article analyses the documentation and websites of AM and FM university radio stations of Brazilian federal educational institutions. Through the documentary analysis of regulations and editorial policies and a categorical content analysis of the “About us” and “Programming” sections of the websites of 26 broadcasters, we seek to understand how these entities align with the principles of the Brazilian Public Broadcasting Service (SRP). The results highlight the predominance of self-identification as an educational service, with a high value on local and regional culture and a dearth of mechanisms for social participation.

The main aim of this study is to determine how radio is perceived as a source of information and entertainment by young Generation Z university students who are studying on communication courses and will be the media workers of the future. A qualitative and quantitative methodology was used, based on 3 focus groups and a survey. The main findings of the survey reveal their perception of radio as a medium for mature audiences, the lack of content that meets their expectations and the failure to adapt it to their digital consumption habits. However, through podcasts, Gen Z students are already consuming radio narratives, sometimes without being aware of it. We conclude that, in order to attract this generational segment, radio broadcasters need to implement creative and innovative strategies to consolidate their presence in podcasting and enhance their corporate image in this emerging landscape.

Sound fiction has always had a place on the public broadcaster Radio Nacional de España (National Radio of Spain, RNE). The objective of this article is to analyse its development using a mixed methodology that combines a literature review, content analysis of five works representative of different periods, and interviews with professionals who work at the station. The essence of fiction on RNE is adaptations of literary classics, live performances and the use of new technologies with a narrative sense. The tendency is to use film techniques in the scripts, to experiment with binaural sound to achieve an immersive effect and to include audio series to expand the audience niche. Likewise, although there is a need for greater investment in human and economic resources, this paper confirms that this is a genre on the rise, as gleaned from the number of podcast productions, currently 115 on the RNE Audio platform.

The podcast has become an ally of traditional radio. Many of its most acclaimed figures are the evolution of radio formats that have lost their niche on the radio waves. An example of this is the narrative non-fiction podcast, also known as the documentary podcast, which could be considered as the evolution of radio reporting. In this paper we count the main narrative resources of the formats published in Spain up to and including the year 2020, and we compare them with a current format in order to analyse the evolution of these variables.
Through this quantitative analysis, we can conclude that it is a format divided into half-hour episodes, with a narrator and three interviews per episode, and that it usually also contains archival documents, musical backgrounds and sound effects. As it has evolved over time, the interventions have become shorter and we find more dynamism.