La Radio en Yucatan...
a quick review of what's on the radio...(part 1 of 2)
No this isn't anywhere NEAR what you will find on the radio in Merida...
AM Radio and La Mano Peluda
- AM radio really doesn't exist,
except for Radio Formula which is kind of interesting, especially at night
when that hilarious program La Mano Peluda comes on with all sorts of 'scary'
experiences narrated by callers to the understanding grunts, hmms and well-wishes
of the host. As the callers relate their tales of imagined mystery and
terror the program has screams and growls in the background. This must
be really entertaining stuff for the protein challenged or the trying-to-stay-awake
truck drivers near Reynosa. If you don't take it seriously, it's most entertaining.
If you do take it seriously, see your shrink.
During the day, there are lots of
news and entertainment programs, the most ridiculous of which has got to
be Alfredo Palacios and his silly tips on how frustrated married
women can survive their delinquent teenage children and drunken husbands.
(have you seen his photo? He looks worse than Michael Jackson, stretched
and retouched beyond belief).
- The real fun, however is on the
FM side of things. Let's take a quick tour of that FM spectrum.... We start
out on the left at:
- This is a new station, that attempts
to emulate the stiff "I'm so cool it's killing me" of 97.7. Lots of english
words thrown around by people who really have no idea of what they're saying
(like 97.7). The best example of this was their radio id spot, which in
spanish was 89.3 MIA (mia as in mine). The letters MIA are the initials
of the stations owner/founder/person. So in spanish it was kind of a play
on words, MIA being part of the official name of the station and MIA as
in mine, which was intended to make you think that it was your radio station.
Translated 89.3 style, this became 89.TREE (yes tree) MY. They simply translated
the spanish mia and converted it into MY. Somehow, this didn't make much
sense to me, but I could be wrong.
Musically, it's 'anything goes', so one minute you'll be listening to Sentidos Opuestos latest schlock, and then Aqua's Barbie Girl followed by Metallica. There doesn't seem to be a music director at this station and the signal is pretty weak.
- Moving to the right is 92.1 which
follows the same format as above, but somewhat more dance-oriented. On
occasion they will play something decent, but this is rare. Usually it
sounds like they bought several versions of 'Now That's What I call Music'
remixes and play them to death. Signal is stronger and they have one DJ,
Saul Barrera, who almost sounds normal, except that they let him talk too
much about insignificant things.
- This is probably the worst mish-mash
of radio on the FM dial. If I'm not mistaken, it's also called radio solidaridadand
probably has the worst sound of all the stations. Programming is quite
varied to say the least, from cumbias and musica tropical to uncensored
Molotov and Control Machete. Their political afiliation can be determined
upon tuning in their unbiased (sarcasm here) Contexto news program where
they follow a very one-sided view. You can decide for yourself which side
this is. It's kind of blatantly obvious.
- The super estereo part must refer
to the signal and sound, because this one sounds the best; it's a pity
that they play such garbage. All spanish, mostly very corny, from their
selection of music to their tacky station id spots. Those chayisimos jingles
are enough to motivate a drive-by-shooting. At predetermined moments, a
little Casio-scripted jingle sings you the time. Ugh!
- Extasis is what these people are
on. All dance and all trash. Lousy sound quality. Zero personality. A real
filler radio station.
- Here come the cumbias. When I'm
really sick and tired of all those american-wannabees on 97.7 and 89.3
the 128th disco remix of Celine Dion's Titanic on extasis I turn to this
station to enjoy the hilarious yucatecan commercials and out of tune cumbias.
Some of the announcers/dj's are actually alive and you can hear them smiling
as they yell out the title of the next song. The dedications are fun too,
especially the names of the persons he's sending saludos to and from. The
redeeming factor of this radio station has to be La Tremenda Corte a Cuban
radio comedy show that comes on at 1:00 pm. It's worth listening to if
you can follow the extremely fast spanish!
In my next issue I'll move along the dial to 97.7 Estereo Maya, 98.5 La Comadre (si la mueve), 99.3 the breathlessly corny cousin to 93.7, 100.1 espacio which only broadcasts on the right channel of your radio, and Radio Universidad 103.9, which is not at all revolutionary and hip as it's name implies.
