Cadena SER - History

History

At 18.30 on Friday 14 November 1924 station EAJ-1 Radio Barcelona, the first Spanish radio station to receive an official licence from the government of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, began regular broadcasting. Seven months later, on 17 June 1925, Unión Radio – a company which had the backing of the leading manufacturers of electrical and broadcasting equipment in Spain, Germany, and the United States – opened station EAJ-7 Radio Madrid, and when, on 10 November 1926, this same company also took over the ownership of Radio Barcelona the foundations were in place for the formation of Spain's first national radio network. By 1927 Unión Radio was operating not only Radio Madrid and Radio Barcelona but also EAJ-5 Radio Sevilla, EAJ-9 Radio Bilbao, and EAJ-22 Radio Salamanca, enabling all of these stations to broadcast simultaneous, i.e. networked, programming for most of their time on air, with Radio Madrid as the chief production centre.

Following the demise of the monarchy headed by Alfonso XIII, and throughout the period of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–39) which followed it, Unión Radio continued to be Spain's only nationwide radio network, and created Spain's first national radio news programme La Palabra ("The Word"), broadcast several times daily. However, from 1939 until 1977, under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco and the initial part of the transition to democracy, the network was forbidden from carrying any national news programming other than the compulsory twice-daily relays of the official news bulletins prepared by the government-controlled Radio Nacional de España.

From 25 September 1940, when ownership of Unión Radio was transferred to the newly constituted Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión (Spanish Broadcasting Company), the network renamed itself Cadena SER. In 1975 25% of the shares in the network were compulsorily acquired by the Spanish state, and in 1984 most of the remaining shares were purchased by the PRISA media conglomerate. The nationalized shares were subsequently sold back to the private sector (in effect, to PRISA) under the premiership of Felipe González in 1992.

The network played a significant role in the period of transition to democracy following the death of Franco and in the years leading up to and immediately following the adoption of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, notably in its coverage of the attempted coup of 23 February 1981. Cadena SER also played a vital journalistic role in its reporting of the events and circumstances of the 2004 Madrid train bombings.