Radio Reloj

On July the 1st 1947, at 6¨00 a.m., from a room located in the roof of the   old CMQ building, on the corner of Monte and Prado St., in Havana, Radio Reloj broadcasting station began to go on the air. In that small and inadequate building, become a studio, there were a table, a microphone, metronome and two chairs.

The idea to introduce the wireless style of this plant was brought from Mexico to Cuba by Gaspar Pumarejo, then head of Programmes in the CMQ Circuit, that knew about the existence in that nation of a plant denominated XEQK that gave the time minute by minute, among recorded commercial spots.

Pumarejo proposed to Goar Mestre, the CMQ owner, to create a similar broadcasting station, but alternating time with live announcements and news.

The founders

The speakers who inaugurated Radio Reloj´s broacasts were Reinerio Flores, Eduardo Tristá, Félix Travieso, Héctor de Soto, Julián Espinal and Ramón Irigoyen; the journalist Jorge Bourbakis and the asistant Roberto López.

In the initial stage there was the unusual fact of a newscast who spread news every minute with no journalists. How could it be a broadcast media phenomenon?

News in the new broadcasting station came from the copies provided by that CMQ news bulletins, located in the floor bellow, and they were taken to the roof by the assistant editor, Roberto López.

The responsible of coordinating the news and send them to Radio Reloj was the journalist Jorge Bourbakis, who remained almost all day long and part of the night in the CMQ editorial office, gathering copies and synthesizing them.

Bourbakis acted as director in functions of the plant, but officially the direction was in the hands of Angel Cambó, one of CMQ owners at the time along with brothers Goar and Abel Mestre.

The Orfila events

When two months and a half had passed of Radio Clock´s foundation, there was a fact that consolidated the singular broadcasting station. On September 15 1947 took place in Havana the events in Orfila neighborhood, in Marianao, where two armed gangs faced up to.

The event was report almost directly, because a CMQ ads salesman, Walterio Voigt, was  near the place and informed immediately what it was happening there. That day the identification phrases "The news in action" " The minute hand reports" and " Radio Reloj is Reporting" were born in the plant;.

These events put Radio Reloj in the first rates of popularity, and established their condition of informative vehicle par excellence. From  that moment on, the advertisers´ requests increased, because they were anxious to get space for their commercial spots.

When time went by the broadcasting stationt was extending and new professionals integrated their staff. On March 13 1957, Radio Reloj  enters in Cuban history, when it was taken by young members of the Revolutionary Directory, with its leader José Antonio Echeverría leading them.

Radio Reloj  in Revolution

Since January the 1st 1959, Radio Reloj  covered an ample informative spectre in the succession of events that defined the hours and the days following the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

In that direction there were spread written versions of the Truth Operation, the trials and executions of assassins of revolutionary combatants, the first maneuvers of the United States to squash our government, as well as Comandante en Jefe  Fidel Castro´s speeches on TV and the radio, to clarify what there was to do at every moment.

Also the broadcasting station offered immediately extensive information about the mercenary invasion by Playa Girón, the October Crisis and, in general, the most transcendental events in national life and abroad.