The Spanish radio industry in its origins. A vision through advertising in Ondas magazine

Abstract

2023 is the aniversary of the comercial radio in Spain: a hundred years ago, a new communication method that would change the spaniards daily life was born.The beginnings of radio in our country were tough due to the technical difficulties and the economical crisis. The beginnings of radio in our country were difficult due to technical difficulties and economic precariousness. This situation changed with the appearance of Unión Radio, a radio station that in a few years would integrate most of the existing radio stations in the large cities of Spain: Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Salamanca, Cádiz, among others. The main radio-machines manufactorers founded the Unión Radio de Madrid station and the Ondas magazine in 1925. Both were used as advertising platforms to promote their products. The manufacturers understood that for the radio-product to be successful they had to develop the radio-service. This work analizes the magazine's advertisements in order to observe the radioelectric industry components in its begining, and its evolution in its early years. We have chosen the years 1925-1926 and 1929-1930 as a temporal reference to make a comparative analysis. One of the main conclusions is that the spanish radio products market was dominated by foreign brands, and that the spanish production was insignificant.