The UAB and the Federation of Local Media Channels of Catalonia sign an agreement to add content to the Radio Sound Archive of Catalonia

The agreement between the two institutions will allow the Federation of Local Media of Catalonia (FMCLCat) to contribute valuable content to the Sound Archive of Radio in Catalonia (ASRC-UAB), both with new radio fragments to be incorporated into the Archive and with the improvement of the description and contextualisation of existing fragments.

Cinto Niqui, director of the ASRC-UAB, presented the main features of the project and thanked Raquel Martínez and Eduard Garcia, president-elect and acting president of the Federation, as well as the 90 radio stations that form part of the Federation, for the joint work conducted through this agreement, which will be added to the agreement with the Local Communication Network (XAL), presented in February of this year.

The Archive currently contains fragments from 1,165 radio stations from 311 Catalan localities, of which 246 are municipal, some 120 are school radio stations, and a significant number come from the third sector, a fact that highlights the historical importance of this medium in Catalonia and its regional and thematic diversity, with a unique radio ecosystem in Europe. There are also short recordings of public and private radio stations and some fragments of international stations that have broadcast in Catalan on the shortwave bands.

"Catalonia has had some 280 municipal radio stations; therefore, we still need to incorporate to the archive records of some 40 municipal radio stations. The intention is not to include all the programmes of a single station, but representative fragments of each of them, and the older the better, because they are the ones most at risk of being lost", says Cinto Niqui.

Juan José Perona, dean of the Faculty of Communication Studies at the UAB, stressed that "the UAB was the first Catalan university to offer university studies in communication in Catalonia, and it has been and continues to be a benchmark in radio studies. In fact, the first PhD theses presented at state level on the radio medium came out of our Faculty. Therefore, the fact that our University hosts the ASRC-UAB should fill us with satisfaction, and this agreement with the FMCLCat will entail a very substantial enrichment of the Archive's collection, which has been made available to the public, in open access, from the very beginning".

Preservation of Catalonia's radio heritage

Before ending the event, Cinto Niqui made an appeal to reclaim the memory of the sound of radio stations in general, and of municipal radio stations in particular: “It is very important that the directors of radio stations convince your mayors that the memory of sound is the heritage of our localities”. This is an effort that, according to him, could also receive the support of county councils.

In fact, the work of preservation and dissemination of sound heritage being carried out by the ASRC-UAB was acknowledged this past May with the Honourable Mention in the Ràdio Associació Awards.

Prior to the presentation of the agreement, the FMCLCat presented the 2n Llibre Blanc de la Ràdio Local a Catalunya and held its annual meeting, where the new board was elected, chaired by Raquel Martínez, who will replace Eduard Garcia. It was also decided that the name of the entity will be changed and the original name will be recovered: Federation of Local Radios of Catalonia.