Presentation of Catalonia's first radio sound file

Web de l'Arxiu Sonor de la Ràdio a Catalunya

In an event to be held at the Institute for Catalan Studies and in commemoration of World Radio Day, the first radio sound file of Catalonia will be presented on 13 February thanks to an initiative by the Institute of Communication (InCom-UAB) and the UAB Communication Library and General Newspaper Archive. The initiative has been directed by Cinto Niqui, lecturer in the UAB Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising.

26/01/2023

The archive gathers a selection of digitalized pieces from Catalan and Spanish radio stations present in the broadcasting bands of Catalonia. The archive, which is available online at https://arxiuradio.uab.cat/, contains more than 2,300 cuts from more than 500 radio stations. It represents a first step towards the project of creating a radio museum in Catalonia.

It includes short samples of radio programmes of different genres, station codes and advertising (for copyright reasons, the musical cuts of radio formulas have been excluded). The oldest cuttings collected in the archive date back to the 1950s. The bulk of the material collected, however, lies between the time of the transition (1976) and the present.

There are national public and private stations, but also local radio stations from 140 different municipalities, as well as about seventy school radio stations and stations from other areas of the so-called third radio sector (stations promoted by citizens from the associative world, neighborhoods, social movements, etc.). There are also some fragments of international stations that have broadcast in Catalan on the shortwave bands. For each station there is a short review that explains the moment in which it was created and its history. The information on the web is classified by stations, by presenters, by programs and by years; searches can also be launched through an interactive map.

Many of the sound documents from the third sector and municipal broadcasters can be found only in this archive and demonstrate the importance of radio in social movements and local information. The project is open to contributions from all citizens: people who are fond of the world of radio, private collectors, loyal listeners, media professionals and contributions that broadcasters can make. The Radio Sound Archive in Catalonia is a non-profit initiative with the intention of public service and is part of the digital project of the Observatory of Communication in Catalonia (OCC InCom-UAB).

The presentation will take place within the event that the Catalan Society of Communication of the Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC) has organized in collaboration with the UAB and Ràdio 4 to commemorate World Radio Day, which is celebrated on February 13 since 2012. It will take place at 5 pm, in the Nicolau d'Olwer room of the IEC. During the event, in addition to the presentation of the Radio Sound Archive in Catalonia, there will be a presentation about the research into the history of radio, by Maria Gutiérrez, a member of the Observatori de la Ràdio a Catalunya of the UAB, and an edition of the program L'altra radio, from Ràdio 4, hosted by professor Cinto Niqui, will be recorded.

The program will be broadcast on Wednesday, February 15 and will include a talk between the deans of the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the UAB, Enric Marín; from the Faculty of Communication of the UPF, Carles Pont, and from the Faculty of Communication and International Relations Blanquerna-URL, Josep Lluís Micó. All three will talk about the project to create a museum of radio in Catalonia (virtual and/or physical), which has already received 600 personal or organization endorsements such as the Catalan Association of Journalists, the Women's Association Journalists of Catalonia, Ràdio Associació de Catalunya, the Local Media Federation of Catalonia and the Catalan Communication Society.