Radio evolution - ICS - Universidade do Minho

Elisa Marconito be reaching Brazil at last. The author of the text, Fagner Abreu Campello, connects the emerging of BandNewsFM to this new scenario. It is a rare analysis that has appeared but few times but makes a lot of sense. If we couldmake an inference in Campello’s text, the radio 100% traffic could be added to the list as well (the author lives inSalvador and is therefore not familiar with the station). According to his text, and taking into consideration otherarticles that have portrayed the moment, there really was a movement toward increasing the amount ofinformation to be diffused via TV and radio channels and, also, the tendency toward increasing the ways theaudience had for reaching the news. “Not yet satisfied with BandNews success, the Group Bandeirantes launcheda bold, sophisticated project, BandNews FM. BandNews FM is the first broadcast chain all news and all FM. Withmodern plasticity, it brings a complete journalistic programme every 20 minutes, 24 hours a day, in an innovativeformat. The anchormen take turns every 20 minutes, operating the transmission table, combining AM’s journalisticforce with the dynamism, high spirits and modernity that are peculiar to FM. BandNews FM is present in the cities:Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba and Brasilia”, describes the blogger. Thisconnection between TV and radio channels is not always established, but in the case of the Brazilian groups, thatusually bridge newspapers, radios and TVs, it is important to follow what happens in each of these strands. Whenyou look at communication as a business, what happens in each of these strands influences the others. BandNewsFM itself had as one of its bands closer proximity with TV Bandeirantes, something that trailblazer BandeirantesAM (even after being propagated in FM) never managed to do. Even the main anchorman is the same person atTV Bandeirantes and at BandNews. At first, Carlos Nascimento. Then and until now, Ricardo Boechat.Theoretical bodyGlobal economy has deemed possible the reunion of several communication groups and, as a result, thestrength of the media conglomerates has grown considerably.“These organizations tend to be more and more powerful with their management made international throughacquisitions and their stock control, more global. The media companies that belong to these conglomerates aremultilingual and, more and more instantaneous, edited in more than one place in the world and available onfree-to-air and cable TVs, or in the Internet anywhere in the world” (Meditsch, 2001: 17)Although we have not yet seen a fusion between large communication groups, the situation in Brazil issimilar to what has been going on in the world. Around here, the main media publications belong, apart from afew exceptions, to large corporate groups in the sector. They are conglomerates that, in general, own newspapers,magazines, TV channels, radio stations and – more recently – Internet portals. The communication companies’choices, therefore, dance according to the winds in economy, in the stock exchange and in the financingpossibilities, either public or international. That is, for a trend to be established in the communication sector, it isnecessary for the economy to indicate the transformation.With the radios in general and the informative FM in particular, the process has been the same. CBN AM,for instance, has built its name during the coverage of the impeachment of former president Fernando Collor deMelo. A skillful coverage, at once new and full of credibility. The propagation in frequency modulation – then anold dream – became reality soon afterwards. With listeners and advertisers’ attention turned in that direction, thecommercial department finally convinced itself that there would be enough publicity to finance that apparentlyabsurd idea. In 1997, the 780 KHz began to air also in 90,5 MHz and has never left its position as a leader,according to Ibope. Similar situations have allowed journalism to enter massively into FM. The launch of theSulAmérica radio, in 1997, for example, is explained by its Director of Journalism as an adequate investment atthat year, “when there was no sign that a global economic crisis was to come”, tells Felipe Bueno. Each broadcaststation had its particularities, but the background was the same. When the country’s economy, the economicsituation in the communication sector or yet the communication conglomerate itself give a green light, the groupspresent innovations in radio.238 | ECREA: Radio Evolution: technology, content, audiences – conference 2011