On November 14, 2024, it will be one hundred years since the SER network began broadcasting, that is, a century since the first authorized radio broadcast in Spain. And it happened in Barcelona, under the name EAJ-1. The Prisa network, which has many reasons to be congratulated, began the celebrations of its centenary last night with a great celebration at the MNAC in Barcelona, which was attended by so many well-known faces – even though the majority were broadcasters – that it could well be measured with that of the Goyas. He even performed the miracle of seeing two radio players together and in good harmony who were such enemies as to inspire a series on Movistar. Some of the most notable radio voices who could not attend the MNAC gala were present in a video (Fernando Onega, Carlos Herrera, Guillermo Fesser, Paco González, Xavier Sardà) although several of those present missed more than one.
La Vanguardia was there to ask what was the moment they experienced on the radio that had marked them the most. We intercepted Andreu Buenafuente, master of ceremonies and producer of the gala through El Terrat, while he was taken inside the Oval Room to prepare: “There are many, but for me the day it all starts, my career at Radio Barcelona: I came on the local radio in Reus and it was like signing for Barça. I told myself 'this is serious, I have means, I have editorial freedom, I have a team, and this is Radio Barcelona'. And I remember every time I entered the building and saw EAJ-1... For quite a few years I got a little nervous in my body.” Buenafuente missed the cocktail offered by Nandu Jubany, so splendid that almost everyone gave up before dinner.
Later, at the gala, Buenafuente would tell who received him in his first job, on Radio Popular in Reus: “One of the men who changed my life opened the door for me. That man was Carles Francino.” The director of The Window jokes with his friend. “It's sad to go down in history for opening a door (laughs). I had information from a friend of yours, he told me about someone who was interested in playing sports when I was on the radio in charge of other things, not just opening the door. The first thing I thought was that you were the most opposite of something that I hate on the radio, solemnity. That freshness you conveyed made me think you would do it well. "It's been 42 years." Buenafuente does not disappoint when asked what led him to hire a minor without a degree or parental permission. “I was 24 years old and four years before I went through the same process,” answers Francino.
To the question: Is there anything that the SER will not fix? José Ramón de la Morena responded calmly: “Well, the SER, the time, the circumstances… And because if not, we would still be in the Punic Wars. Possibly, the one I have as the most impressive memory is a program in which we went down with Fernando Alonso to an Asturian mine in which 14 people died years ago. Doing the program from there and listening to Víctor Manuel singing La planta 14 will stay with me forever.” Supergarcía went back much further: “What marked me the most in my life were two events, 23 F and the massacre in the Mexican plaza of Tlatelolco in 1968. We had gone to Mexico for the Olympics and the students wanted to draw the attention of the whole world. What I saw there… I saved my life with another companion because I stood under a van while the soldiers shot at the students from the helicopters.”
The violence but also the end of it was present. Aimar Bretos, director of Hora 25, chooses a moment that encapsulates all the meaning of radio as a dialogue table: “It was the day we managed to bring together Juan Manuel Santos, former president of Colombia, and Rodrigo Londoño 'Timochenko' in the same studio. , former leader of the FARC. They were two people who wanted to kill each other at the time, one from the legitimacy of the State and the other from a terrorist group, and years later they were in a studio with microphones in front of them, talking, dialoguing, I don't know if reaching agreements, but they were looking for them. through conversation.”
Roberto Sánchez, director of If it dawns, we leave, was very young when he achieved such an impact that he was almost fired: “We emulated Orson Welles on June 30, 1995 and that Night of the Broken Trains was about to cost us our job (laughs) . As an end-of-year program we emulate the structure of Welles' The War of the Worlds: the program began with questions and answers but little by little news begins to emerge that talks about trains stopped in different parts of Spain. It was a radio drama and we warned about it at the beginning but even so, the presses of some newspapers stopped. At 3:30 I had to report again that it was fiction and at 4 in the morning we told it in the bulletin. Well, some other station reported it as if it were real news to the point that Renfe sent workers to fix the supposed breakdown. The next day we had to apologize.”
Àngels Barceló did not hesitate for a moment: “The day of the end of ETA, because it was also in San Sebastián, in the Ayete Palace, and from there we gave the statement. Although it was a program planned for the public, we did not publicize it much because it was informative in nature. Well, people started coming, people and people coming... It was so emotional... It was the news that I had wanted to give all my life. And I was able to do it.” José Luis Sastre, his right-hand man in Hoy por hoy, has the same feeling. “Àngels sent me to the street and I went to the Kursaal theater: the people who had entered the concert, entered with one society and left with a different one. They did not know that while the Basque Country Symphony was performing, ETA had said it was leaving. I stood at the door and asked. The amazement, those faces, being able to tell that…”
Javier Ruiz, collaborator of Hoy por hoy and head of Economy of the SER, agrees with his colleagues and adds his own anecdote: “I remember Javier Sardá giving me access to inform about the attack on a general, who had been murdered with a shot to the back of the head. : 'There is a man from the Ser network, Javier Ruiz, good afternoon.' It was the first time I was aware of working and being a man in that chain. The hardest moment was the death of Miguel Ángel Blanco: he was doing the early morning bulletins, we connected with the Nuestra Señora de Aranzazu hospital and the colleague who was there told us 'Miguel Ángel Blanco has just died'. In the same way that laughter is contagious, tears are contagious. Everyone burst into tears in the studio and you have to get the rest of the bulletin through. You see, a ticket at two in the morning, which you think is unimportant, and the heart of half of Spain opens.”
Julia Otero, at the head of Julia en la Onda (Onda Cero), chooses a recent moment in which her heart also opened: “The day I interviewed Ousman Umar, four or five years ago. He told me his adventures from the time he left his village in Africa until he managed to reach the peninsula. When he arrived at the passage where he was among the containers looking for something to eat and when he arrived in Barcelona a woman took him home and turned him into her son, a humble woman from Meridiana, at that moment... I broke down and I started to cry. "I couldn't get over the emotion of that moment."
Gemma Nierga keeps her premiere: “On October 2, 1990, when I started Parlar per parlar in Catalonia. I would keep that moment because the emotion, the excitement, the nerves, the expectations of a career that I could not imagine: I was doing my program when I was 24 or 25 years old. That moment has a magic that you will never find again.” Boris Izaguirre speaks in similar terms: “The death of Lady Di because the next day I started working on the SER channel, in La Ventana with Gemma Nierga: September 1, 1997 was the first day that I appeared speaking on the radio".
Joan Manuel Serrat, whom Buenafuente had a good time on stage during the gala, is unable to choose his best moment: “It would be simple to choose a single moment for someone who has spent his entire life so close to the radio. She is a partner with whom I have never fought (laughs).” What is the daily life of a legend like when she retires? “I live, every day I wake up with the gratitude of being alive, of opening my eyes and seeing that we are there and I have the day ahead of me. I haven't stopped living at any point since I got off stage. I'm happy. At least, I am not more unhappy than she was.”
