The airwaves are to the free radio stations what paper is to the journals. Without airwaves free radio couldn't broadcast and of course, just by chance, this area has always been completely monopolised by the State. The State has, in every country of the world, seized exclusive control of this area and has only just conceded, above all because of private initiative within the business world, a part of this exclusivity in the form of Users Licences. Not even the governments of the left, who currently hold power, have deigned to make of the radiophonic medium an area for communication and not simply an area of information dissemination and other things which has always typified its very character. For this reasons the free stations apart from demanding freedom of speech, something which we could say to a degree we have achieved, also demand the freedom to transmit, which entails of course prizing a few crumbs from the exclusive control of the airwaves by the State. We want a slice, a simple slice so that what the powers that be call freedom of expression can become a real possibility. The concept of free radio in itself, is already a blow against this concept of sovereignty of the State over the air waves and the free radios in fact have not demanded legalisation but rather the simple recognition of a basic right: the release of a section of space on the airwaves.
One might say that the free radios were born in Paris in 1978 when the International Federation of Free Radio Stations was formed at a meeting of The Association for the Liberation of the Airwaves (ALO) and the Federacione de Radio Emitenti Democratiche (FRED) which ended up being called ALFREDO 78. Many Spanish and Catalan comrades were at the meeting which gave rise to the first experiences of free Spanish radio in Catalunia in 1978 with broadcasts by Ona Lliure first from Santa Maria de Corco and since then in Barcelona currently from the Centre Civic in the Calle de Blay en Poble Sec, Barcelona. Contrabanda, the radio station I work with, has immersed itself in the philosophy of free radio. Contrabanda is not a libertarian radio station in the strictest sense of the term. At Contrabanda there are libertarians but there are also others who we might say are vaguely Marxist or people who defend ideas of Catalan independence, ecology or feminism. Personally I like it that way. I don't share the hangups of others and it's a good thing that there should be a wide variety of views on a free radio station like ours.
Contrabanda started running in September 1988 when in the course of a meeting of people from differing ideological backgrounds, professions and so on it was decided to set up a legal Cultural Association with the express intention of founding a free radio station. Our first move was to find premises, get subscribers to help get some minimal income, buy equipment and put into effect a variety of initiatives from selling 'solidarity bonds' or outings with food that we provided to help raise cash. Another problem from the word go was the passing of legislation in December 1988 which allowed the minister to go ahead with his plan for a complete clean up of existing free stations and pirate stations (which put out publicity). The last one to be closed down was Radio Pica. After that it became extremely hard to even contemplate trying to set something up despite the fact that there had been calls from them not least from the International Federations which were backing up calls for free radio in Spain.. It was all in vain. The new legislation simply ended up promoting the interests of the private companies and the state sector including military communications and so on. Contrabanda, or the group that was trying to get it on the road at the time decided that there was no point in trying to do things the hard way and for that reason it started negotiating with the Generalitat (Catalan local govt. trans) and groups within it that might listen sympathetically to the demands for freedom to broadcast. It was felt that without this softly, softly approach it would be impossible to broadcast transmissions with an acceptable degree of quality since the prohibition was a kind of Damocles sword, ever threatening, and laying down the risk of seizure of equipment as had happened to Radio Pica and it would not be feasible to transmit at will. These negotiations took a long time before giving rise to, thanks to a collective petition put together by the radio stations and the parliamentary group Esquerra Republicana, the introduction in the Catalan parliament of a motion, not a law, calling for the recognition of the existence or the right to exist for the free stations and that as a result of this the government of the Generalitat should set up legally this right to exist. Curiously, or perhaps miraculously, this law got through. And I say miraculously because in the Basque Country a petition for a similar project which was put before the Basque parliament by Euskadiko Ezquerra was rejected. The Generalitat, seeing itself forced to legislate on the matter decided to set up an experimental period for free radios until the end of 1990 which was permissible within the framework of existing legislation. This is not what the free radio stations wanted but they decided to put up with it. Anyway, the authorities identified three frequencies which would be made available to and could be used by the free stations. At the time there were six of us in the metropolitan area we split up the allotted frequencies. In January 1991 Contrabanda FM began transmissions along with Radio Pica on 91.0 FM for 24 hours a day. Contrabanda from 3pm to 3am and Radio Pica the rest. This continued until Radio Pica moved to 91.8.
Contrabanda is a self-managed radio station. We work by assembly; the means are collective. The people who make the programmes pay to sustain the collective and all those who make programmes have a voice and a vote on the assembly. As I said earlier Contrabanda is legally speaking a Cultural Association and amongst other initiatives we have recently set up a Counterinformation Agency. Our philosophy could be defined as the cultural melting pot. On the one hand we should make it clear that we broadcast in Catalan. We believe our language has been monopolised by certain sectors of the bourgeoisie which has allowed the two to be mistaken for each other. We aim to use the language differently not so pure not so grammatically correct but giving it other strengths. So our language is Catalan and our philosophy that of the free stations that is to say to give a voice to those who have no other platform. A number of collectives put the programmes together. Some 36 to 40 go out 21 of which are internally produced, 9 by outside collectives and 6 by individuals. News takes up 31% of airtime, culture 14.6%. music programmes 27% and the other 26% is non-stop music. The collectives involved are indeed varied for example there is a Serbo Croat broadcast another called Demanem la Paraula, African Hour - a programme put out by women from Guinea - and also the Alternative News Agency which is yet another libertarian group working in the information field producing two weekly slots and with whom Contrabanda works closely on an alternative news project. Then their is 'Immigrant Viewpoint' made by Magrebine collectives, The MOC Programme (Conscientious Objectors), The Red Missile (Gay). This is what Contrabanda puts together in order to allow for an open space for those collectives and individuals who otherwise would have no way of making themselves heard. The financing as I have said is partly dealt with by 'solidarity bonds' paid for by those who are not necessarily connected with making programmes. They pay some 500ptas per month. May I say that the best way to support the free radios is to tune in and listen to them in order to ensure that there is another means of communication. Contrabanda hasn't even been going for three years. The first years have been taken up, as is always the case, with fine tuning our technical skills and we now consider ourselves in good shape both internally and externally. We've come out well...
In another field we've put together special programmes as for example during the last general strike from 5am to 10pm covering the developments from the doorstep of a departmental store! The Working Woman's Day on 8th March is another tradition. To finish I would simply like to say that we call on you to help us in the ways we have described. If we get this support from the people there is no reason for us to lose this space we have found as has been shown by the experiences of Radio Klara in Valencia and others in the Basque Country. We hope one day to celebrate our tenth anniversary.