The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 51

His life in radio leads to network dreams By PATRICIA DUARTE Herald Staff Writer FROM now on Miami had better behave or be embarrassed coast to-coast warns New York trans plant Raul Alarc6n Sr who's planning the first Hispanic radio network in the United States going to have news about the Grand Prix and other good things about this place" says AlarcOn new owner of WCMQ in Miami if there is negative news expose them His three stations in Miami New York and Los Angeles already function as a network by exchanging news programming But Alarcdn is negotiating with the Satellite Radio Network System to link the stations so he can broadcast live one-hour music segments consecutively from each city He says the project will start as soon negotiations are complete and he can install a satellite dish atop his Coral Way building Meanwhile Alarcdn and his son Raul Jr have brought sweeping changes and a new style to WCMQ AM-FM which their Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) bought in September for $15 million going to be more aggressive in music and says Alarc6n Sr who is in charge of all SBS programming have the hits and the news before the other Spanish The new team tinker with the mellow music format at FM-92 already rated among the top 10 stations in Dade and Broward the AM frequency that must improve dramatically against No 2 WQBA-AM (The last Arbitron survey rated WCMQ-AM as No 22 in the market) think create an impact big enough to hurt says Julio Mendez WQBA operations manager AM station is all news theirs is mostly music But so new and made so many radical changes that we still can't predict Alarcdn says he has invested $500000 to buy and improve equipment and created a news staff with six hires He has added four hours of morning news and replaced much of the homespun Caribbean-style music WCMQ had been playing with a more ballad sound The AM name has been changed from Radioalegre to WCMQ Radio Centro the National Network A new set of snappy jingles now trumpets slogans such as Mas musica en tu vida music in your RICK McCAWLEY Miami Herald Staff at one of their three radio stations WCMQ in Miami Raul Alarcdn Sr and his son Raul Jr news it gets things moving" The throbbing beat fills the room and Alarcdn's face breaks into a wide grin of satisfaction been in radio all his life so a radio says Oliva In 1956 Alarcdn founded the first radio network in Camaguey Province Cuba He started out teaching school in the daytime and working as a deejay at night until By the late 1950s he owned three stations and co-owned six others in Camaguey and Oriente provinces Faced by increasing media censorship from the Castro government Alarcdn and Please turn to SPOTLIGHT 10 And though most of the old deejays have stayed on Alarcdn is retraining them into using a more modern rapid-fire patter on the air teaching these kids where to cut in on a he says Spanish radio people are used to having deejays talk to them Anglo deejays talk too A former deejay himself Alarcdn drives around listening to the radio stop just about anywhere and call his announcers to point out mistakes here are surprised to see an owner not sipping martinis with other businessmen but working at the station like one more says Elio Oliva the news director Alarcdn who writes and narrates a daily financial news segment prides himself on being a sort of radio Renaissance man do everything around here from a music show to news" he says learned about radio putting up a tower in Cuba I know how to install the wires on the ground I did it for my first radio station in Cuba" He speaks slowly and enunciates carefully like the old-style Spanish radio announcers his broadcaster voice devoid of any regional accents listen to he urges turning up the volume on a sound component set behind his desk like to play salsa after the February 23 1987 am The MIAMI HERALD.