Historical Constitution of Public Radio Stations in Brazil

Abstract

Educational, state, cultural, and university radio stations have already developed over more than 70 years of history in Brazilian radio broadcasting. Currently, there are hundreds of stations transmitting across the country, from the North to the South. Some of them—that in the 1990s included 100 broadcasting stations and among these, the oldest and nationally referenced—up to this decade operated and were referenced as a component of the educational radio system. Mainly from this period on, most of these stations began to call themselves public. And, especially due to their programming, they have been attempting to define themselves within the profile of public radio stations. The purpose of this article is to uncover the historical construction of this group of radio broadcasting stations, by means of a timeframe, from the advent of the non-commercial segment in the 1930s until today. It reconstructs referential models and presents main threads and features of the programming of these stations throughout these seven decades. In this way, it will also evince how Brazil is constructing its model of public radio.