Radio Reloj is an internationally broadcast Spanish-language radio station, located in Cuba. It currently carries an all-news format. It has consistently been Cuba's number one radio station.
Overview
The station is heard on various AM frequencies throughout the country and also on certain FM frequencies, such as 101.5 FM in Havana. Radio Reloj started at 6am on 1 July 1947 and claims to be the first non-stop information channel in the world.
News broadcasting
The news item is read against a background sound of continuous clock ticks every second. Every minute there is a station name announcement, a beep on the minute, a time announcement and "RR".-..-. in Morse code. On the top and bottom of each hour, the main news headlines are broadcast for two minutes. Both Manu Chao and Vocal Sampling have recorded musical "tributes" to these background ticks, in the songs "Me Gustas Tú" and "Radio Reloj", respectively. The station's unusual style has required the use of short expressions that avoids the divorce between the speaker's spoken word and the word written by the editor or the reporter. Editors have to write 13-15 lines for sheets which is read by a voice only, and 15-16 lines for those which is read by two voices. Another rule is that the news bulletin must finish in exactly 60 seconds or less. Because of this, it is not uncommon for the on-air journalist to fill the remaining time with so-called queues like important events and curious facts, nor is it for him/her to accelerate the reading speed to finish the news on time. Also, because of this, there's usually a corrector working at any shift to check the minutes that're going to air and corrects the content/writing errors to meet the requirements. If the news is not finished after the beep, the journalist must say the word CONTINUARÁ to be able to continue, and if the news ends in the next minute, he should say the word CONCLUSIÓN at the end. The exact time is also included. Radio Reloj announces the time of 20 capital cities in the world every day at midday and midnight. Radio Reloj claims that it broadcasts 300 news items every day, more than 50% of Cuba and the rest of the world.
Radio Reloj is always live, 24 hours a day. There're usually two anchors during every news bulletin and each rotates every 4 hours. After 1 hour of reading news, the anchor has half an hour to rest, then come back and read another hour of news, then half an hour for resting and the anchor finishes the shift by the final hour of reading news. In a two-voice format, there're 4 paragraphs in each sheet of writing from editors. The first announcer reads the 1st and 3rd paragraph, whilst the second announcer reads the 2nd and 4th ones. Whilst one of the two main anchors is on the rest, there'll be a third anchor temporarily replaces him/her. This system is rotated for hours: An anchor stays for an hour as the first announcer, then he rotates to be the second announcer in the next hour. In a one-voice format, all the information is read by exactly the same announcer.
Listenership outside of Cuba
From its inception in 1947 until the Internet era, Radio Reloj was generally available only to listeners in Cuba; however, on occasion during a clear night, Radio Reloj could be heard in adjacent countries, and it generally has a good signal along the Florida Keys and some parts of Southwest Florida, due to this area being immediately north of Havana. A good example of DXing of Radio Reloj was on the morning of January 21, 1999 at 1:20am, when US radio station WMCA, licensed in New York City and broadcasting on 570 AM, went off the air for transmitter maintenance. Once WMCA's carrier signal dropped, Radio Reloj's broadcast could be heard up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States including New York City, where WMCA originates its broadcasts. Radio Reloj is also available free in satellite broadcast in Hispasat 30° W. Radio Reloj has also started broadcasting its programming via an Internet stream using any media player in decent albeit low bit-rate sound quality. The address for the live stream is http://www.radioreloj.cu/es/multimedia/radio-reloj-audio-en-vivo/
