On November 1, 1931, the First National Radio Exhibition was inaugurated in Barcelona. This is how it had to be: in the capital of Catalonia and only a few months after the proclamation of the Republic.
It was logical, since the first station had been founded in Barcelona in 1924. And it was also logical that the Republic was in this area a sign of freedom. Suffice it to explain that the people most responsible for the creation of EAJ-1 were summoned shortly afterwards by the fearsome Minister Martínez Anido to the General Directorate of Security: they were made to wait so long that they ended up spending the night there; the next day they let them go. It was a warning for them to be very careful about the use they had to make of that new technology, seen by the dictatorship as a danger.
The Catalans and the people of Barcelona, its spearhead, have always been seduced by foreigners and modernity. That is why the growing interest in Europe for the attractive novelty of radio did not go unnoticed.
Barcelona emerged as the welcoming home of this adventure. In 1923 a group of businessmen founded the magazine Radiosola. In 1924 a series of companies created the National Association of Radiotelephony to attract business people and merchants to promote radio.
EAJ-1 is born, which installs the first studio under the dome of the Hotel Colón, with highly visible antennas on the roof. On November 14, 1924, the first message was broadcast, by the mayor Baron de Viver. The following year, the station moved to Casp, 12, and shortly after still permanently 6.
It was an undoubted stimulus that the number of receivers and radio listeners multiplied spectacularly.
It was significant that Ràdio Barcelona provided technical support, so that the proclamation of the Republic made by Macià from the balcony of Plaça Sant Jaume could be broadcast throughout Spain.
It was logical that a few months later the first exhibition was inaugurated. The place provided a symbolic charge not only because of its centrality: the entrance to the basement of Plaça Catalunya was in front of the Hotel Colón.
Journalism was entering an innovative phase that, instead of harming the written press, provided a fascinating and vivid information speed.
