Mexican Radio Dramas

Abstract

When radio stations in Mexico City began transmitting dramas in the early 1930s, listeners throughout Mexico had a decade of familiarity with the medium behind them. At the time, commercial and official stations transmitted an array of programs, including news bulletins, conferences, weather reports, women’s advice shows, cooking presentations, and vast amounts of music—solos, orchestras, bands, piano recitals, etc. A radio drama, however, was different. Dramas demanded a captive audience, tested the boundaries of listeners’ imagination, provided emotional fulfillment, and capitalized on wireless broadcasting’s intrinsic capabilities: taking messages instantly, the moment they are created, to audiences. The history of radio dramas in Mexico parallels nationwide trends and developments including population growth, rural to urban migration, and the irreversible effects of US economic and cultural imperialism. Dozens of stations appeared in the 1930s, yet only a handful led audiences through these transformations, including XEW, which was the first commercial station to air a radio play, Los Tres Mosqueteros on the evening of August 1, 1932. Foreign plays and theater performances written by Mexican men and women specifically for the radio, or radioteatro, became an important genre of the decade, allocating a slot in daily programming for dramas. The zenith of golden age dramas occurred in the 1940s, not with adapted European or US theater productions but with radionovelas. Generally sponsored by transnational corporations like Max Factor and Colgate Palmolive, the hit series Anita de Montemar, Francisca Velasco, Elena Montalvo, Chucho el roto, or the Cuban triumph El derecho de nacer are exemplary in their innovation, artistic talent, and production. The radio industry enjoyed nationwide growth once stations recorded radionovelas and distributed them throughout the country through a newly inaugurated network and after the Mexican government decided to join the allied forces during the Second World War. Radio dramas did not disappear in the 1950s when television was a threat to the wireless broadcasting industry. Instead, drama sketches were included in elaborate sponsored shows and evening programs where film stars “paraded” in front of audience members.