The History of Technology series continues the celebration for the hundredth episode, which was the previous one. We told the whole history of radio in the world, from creation to the latest developments. But it's missing showing the whole point of view of Brazil there, and there's a lot of cool and curious things to talk about.
So already leave your like here in the video, subscribe to the TecMundo channel if you are not an subscriber, tap the bell to receive notifications and let's go to the history of radio in Brazil! The history of radio in Brazil begins with an injustice committed against a Brazilian. Well, when we talk about the first radio experiments, the names of Thomas Edison, Tesla and, of course, Marconi always come up.
But normally, the name of Father Roberto Landell de Moura, who should actually enter this hall of fame, is left aside . From 1893, years before the Europeans, he would have built and patented a series of radio wave transmission equipment and even carried out successful experiments in sending and receiving the human voice. But why did I say "would"?
It's just that the documentation of the time is very limited and reports are also rare. The most famous event takes place in 1899, in São Paulo, when he managed to break the radio transmission distance record at the time with his device, the teleforo: seven kilometers. But the idea didn't go ahead.
The Chamber of Deputies of São Paulo denied the priest's request for more resources to develop the experiments and begin the industrialization of the devices. He even had patents granted in the United States very late, only in 1904, and ended up giving up his career as an inventor in 1910. He was forgotten for a long time, but fortunately in recent years some researchers and biographers have told the story of Landell de Moura to everyone.
keep alive the memory of this patron of Brazilian radio, who enjoys it can go after these readings that I recommend! Now we travel to April 6, 1919, when the first broadcaster in Brazil was founded. It is also forgotten by many people: Rádio Clube de Pernambuco, inaugurated by a group of friends who are fans of radiotelegraphy in Recife.
With borrowed disks and the presidency of Augusto Joaquim Pereira, they transmitted music from the station to a receiver that only worked with headphones, since it was before the arrival of tubes. The first broadcast with its own equipment and for the city's neighborhoods only took place three years later. The first official radio broadcast in Brazil is easy to remember: it was on September 7, 1922, commemoration of the centenary of the Independence of Brazil in the country's capital, which was Rio de Janeiro.
The only images of that event are from an exhibition held in the city that took place in parallel, but reports indicate that not many people were listening. The program was a speech by the president at the time, Epitácio Pessoa, and excerpts from the work O Guarani, which was performed live at the Municipal Theater. The transmitter was installed from the top of Corcovado and was borrowed by Westinghouse, one of the largest in the world in the sector, which spread 80 receivers in the capital of Rio de Janeiro and also in Petrópolis and Niterói.
One of the people who was enchanted by this transmission was Edgard Roquette Pinto, a physician and professor. After a year of insisting with the government, he managed to convince the Brazilian Academy of Sciences to buy its own equipment and founded the second radio station in Brazil, Rádio Sociedade do Rio de Janeiro. At the beginning of the radio's history, lectures and classical music dominated the programming, since the stations were owned by academics and intellectuals.
The radio was donated by Roquette Pinto to the Ministry of Education and Culture and changed its name to Rádio MEC, but kept a request from its creator: to always be focused on the dissemination of Brazilian culture. It exists until today in the AM and FM frequencies, and today it is part of the EBC, the Brazilian Communication Company. In early July 2019, there were reports that the radio would be shut down as part of cost cuts, but fortunately the government backtracked.
Club and society radios were common in the first decade of radio in the country, as they were groups of technology enthusiasts who got together to experiment and ended up creating a business. They came at times similar to Ceará Rádio Clube, Sociedade Rádio Pelotense, Rádio Clube Belo Horizonte, Rádio Clube Paranaense, Rádio Clube do Pará and so on. In the 26th, Radio Mayrinck Veiga is created, in Rio, one of the largest in the region and with a lot of focus on entertainment, with freshman shows, live performances by musicians hired by the station and so on.
Another great foundation of that time in São Paulo was Rádio Record, in 1928, which is the same Record that you know today from television. It was sold years later to Paulo Machado de Carvalho and finally to Bishop Edir Macedo. The next great leap for radio in Brazil only came in 1932, during the government of President Getúlio Vargas.
It was he who authorized broadcasters to have 10% of programming for advertising, which allowed them to earn money to survive and expand. Then stations spread across the country. Before, there were advertisements in the programs, but it was all kind of informal.
A decade later, the golden era of radio in the country arrives, and it becomes the main means of communication to get information, pass the time, sing and dance, have fun. On July 22, 1935, the National Program premiered, still on the air today. Are you not recognizing?
It changed its name shortly afterwards to Hora do Brasil and in 1962 to Voz do Brasil. It has already gone through several programming changes, starting almost as a propaganda of itself for the government, with only acts of the executive. In 1962, with the Brazilian Telecommunications Code, time began to be shared with news from the Legislative branch.
In the 70s, it even became a traditional radio newscast, even talking about sports. Today, programming is more focused on news about politics, but with a focus on what makes a difference for the citizen. It is produced by EBC, Rádio Câmara and Rádio Senado, with the opening being Carlos Gomes' classic, O Guarani.
Voz do Brasil has been broadcast on all radio stations in the country since 1938, but President Michel Temer sanctioned a measure that made the schedule more flexible. This has not yet been officially decided and is in the hands of the STF. In 1936, Rádio Nacional was founded, the largest broadcasting model in the country for a long time, mainly because it was supported by the Vargas government.
And a law this year requires stations to increase the power of their transmitters, to reach more places. And it was only from 1938 onwards that Brazilians heard a World Cup on the radio. Leonardo Gagliano Neto, from Radio Clube do Brasil, was the only national narrator who broadcast the games held in France.
Italy was twice champion, but the country would hear many joys from the national team and its favorite clubs in the years and decades to come. Galvão Bueno, Luciano do Valle, José Silvério and Osmar Santos, great sports announcers, started on the radio. Fausto Silva, known as Faustão, also took his first steps as a field reporter at Rádio Globo.
The 1940s are one of more expansion and big names. One of the greatest is that of Henrique Foréis Domingues, the Admiral. He was a singer, songwriter and broadcaster, who commanded several programs and was an idol for many people at that time.
His specialty was music, but he experimented with even horror programs — all done live. Radio singers were the most celebrated, and even had their own contest: the Queen of the Radio that lasted several years. These artists were already famous or were discovered at freshman shows, those where newbies and amateurs showed their talents and risked listening to praise or jokes.
There are many names, but we can name a few: Dalva de Oliveira, Emilinha Borba, Dóris Monteiro, Angela Maria and even Carmen Miranda. Of the men, Cauby Peixoto, Francisco Alves, Ary Barroso, Orlando Silva stood out . There were also many comedians, such as Manuel de Nóbrega, the father of Carlos Alberto da Praça and Chico Anysio, in addition to programs such as Balança, Mas Não Cai.
Chacrinha also started during this period and another great producer who is considered responsible for creating the Brazilian language of radio was Ademar Casé, Regina Casé's grandfather. Then begins another format that has become a favorite among Brazilians: radio soap operas. The first was “Em Busca da Felicidade”, which aired on June 5, 1941.
At that time, the influence of programming in the United States was great and the programs were sponsored, in this case the telenovela had the Colgate presentation. The greatest classic of radio soap operas was “The right to be born”, which later went to TV. It stayed on the air for two years and had Paulo Gracindo as the protagonist.
They revealed great acting and scriptwriting talents, and the productions were creative, with improvised sound effects so you can feel the immersion in the story. On August 28, 1941, Repórter Esso debuted, the main journalistic program on Brazilian radio and later on TV for many years. He immortalized the slogan Eyewitness to History and even focused on international news, as World War II was in progress.
Dalmácio Jordão, Benedito Ruy Rezende, Luís Jatobá and Heron Domingues are some of the newspaper's most famous names. The last edition of Repórter Esso on the radio in 1968 is heartbreaking . The announcer Roberto Figueiredo does not hold back his emotions when he summarized the events reported by the program and had to be replaced in the middle of speech On December 2, 1944, Rádio Globo was inaugurated by Roberto Marinho.
This was the first broadcaster of a group that you certainly know which one it is. Then we arrive on September 18, 1950, which is not a breakthrough in radio, but has everything to do with it. This is the day of the first television broadcast in Brazil.
It was still very black and white and virtually no Brazilian had the device at home, but this medium is here to stay. Behind this experiment was businessman Assis Chateaubriand, known as Chatô, owner of Diários Associados, dozens of stations and newspapers across the country. As no one knew how to operate the equipment at the time, radio station technicians were called in.
And since there was no cast, radio artists commanded the first programs. In the following years , many people left radio aside to work on TV, and the medium had to reinvent itself. The reporter Esso, for example, left many heirs and journalism became one of the greatest uses of radio.
From the 1960s, several networks invested in live stories, with reporters recording in the streets, political analysts and much more. Rádio Continental and Rádio Jornal do Brasil were the pioneers in this format. It was also at this time that the famous battery operated radios became popular in Brazil, and then we took the radio anywhere.
And in 62, the Brazilian Association of Radio and Television, ABERT, is created. And radio's political role never ended. In 1961, for example, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Leonel Brizola, created the legality network.
This was a campaign carried out after the resignation of President Jânio Quadros, to ensure that the vice-president, João Goulart, would take office. Brizola produced daily news bulletins, which were retransmitted by various stations throughout Brazil, with the voiceover recorded in the basements of the Piratini Palace. At least the possession he secured.
In 1970, the pilot projects for the implantation of FM in Brazil ended. We already explained the difference between AM and FM in the previous video, come back for a better explanation. The fact is that AM radio became “spoken radio”, for announcers with big speeches and other types of programs, while FM, with higher transmission quality, was music radio.
FMs exploded in the 80s, with well-defined programming, that classic business of asking for music on the radio, not to mention sports programs and football narrations. In 1990, new features include Rádio Bandeirantes broadcasting via satellite in AM and FM. In 1991, the Central Brasileira de Notícias (CBN) was inaugurated.
Today, she and BandNews are the main ones in terms of journalism in this field, with big names that have already been there, such as Ricardo Boechat, Carlos Alberto Sardenberg, Juca Kfouri, Milton Jung and much more. In the 2000s, technology and the internet arrived with everything. But if radio didn't end up with television, of course it wouldn't end up here.
The transmissions were getting better in transmission and the radios were well defined by styles and formats. Many went to the internet, so you can listen even without a device, and to the cell phone, with an FM reception chip that unfortunately is less and less activated in new models. Brazil still had a wave of internet via radio, an alternative connection for those who did not have an option via fiber optics, but today much rarer.
And perhaps the biggest recent news is the AM to FM conversion program, an incentive for AM stations to switch to another frequency. The project started in 2016 to make these radios survive and even adopt digital and is still ongoing. Today, radio is still alive, although the golden age is long gone.
Sports, journalism, music and entertainment radio stations still exist and are good company for those in need. Today, distractions are greater, there is TV, Netflix, video games, podcasts and social networks. But there are still people who prefer the good old stack radio.
And this is the history of radio in Brazil, personally a vehicle that I love even today, and that still has its importance in the country. Thus, we finish our special edition of 100 episodes of History of Technology, but the picture continues. Therefore, if you have a suggestion for a company, a service or an event in the world of technology, leave it in the comments so you know we read it and we respond.
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