Almost half a century ago the radio inaugurated its transmissions in Varadero. But the history of our environment is still to be written and it is the task of its collective to deepen the conditions that gave rise to it.
On October 10, 1958, GMGB Radio Varadero, begins its test transmissions on 18th Street between Second and Third Avenues, at the spa. It had 508 as the telephone number.
Its founding nucleus was integrated as: general director, Rafael Palmer Rodríguez; sales manager, René García; technical director, the late Argilio Rodríguez González; announcers, Arnaldo Pérez Mirabal and Bienvenido Arencibia González and in the realization of the sound, the operators José Saracho Vegas and Juan Romero.
The plant officially went on the air on October 20, 1958 and its transmissions were very similar to those of all the stations of that time. The program contained musical programs, news programs, and as a particular, a space led by two Americans. It also had a small comment program and a stable news service. The newscast lasted half an hour, several bulletins and publicity. Transmitted at the usual time of 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. daily.
The owner – even though it was an anonymous company with shareholders – was Rafael Palmer Rodríguez, a journalist who had directed the CMGE news program in Cárdenas. The station was taken by the revolutionary power of its workers from 8:00 in the morning on January 1, 1959.
Radio Varadero was on the air until May 31, 1962, the date on which the Cardenas and Península stations merged, under the auspices of the Cuban Radio Institute, which brought together all the existing and dispersed ones into a state agency.
At that time, the spa’s station belonged to La Voz del INRA (National Institute of Agrarian Reform), a fact that was counterproductive in a tourism scenario that its station addressed mainly agricultural issues.
Between 1962 and 1997 there was no official radio program in the peninsula, but a plant that only transmitted indirect music. It is not until 1997 when the management of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) decided to create a studio attached to the Radio Taíno tourist station.
The construction work to adapt the property, located at Calle 12 No. 403, between Caminos del Mar and First Avenue, concluded on December 20, 1997, the date on which the civil work was inaugurated. But it was not until January 8, 1998, that the official transmissions of the Radio Taíno Varadero studio began. With live programming for five and a half hours. It started at 9:00 a.m. at 12:30 p.m., from that time was linked with Taíno in Radiocentro. Again from 3:00 p.m. at 5:00 p.m. the signal originated from the Blue Beach studios.
The programming of the study was eminently cultural-recreational with a high presence of advertising messages, responding to the social purpose of marketing services to the client in the tourist pole of Varadero.