Frequency 87.9–106.9 MHz Owner RTVE | First air date 13 December 1976 | |
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Broadcast area Catalonia FM, DAB & DVB-T and Satellite Format News, talk, contemporary music in Catalan. Webcast | ||
Ràdio 4 is a Barcelona-based radio station broadcasting to the Catalan-speaking population of the provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona in northeastern Spain. It is part of the country's national public radio and television service, RTVE.
RNE Ràdio 4 was launched in 1976 during the Spanish transition to democracy, and was integrated into a regional countrywide Radio 4 network in 1988 after the closure of the state-owned but commercially funded Radiocadena Española in that same year. The integrated regional countrywide Radio 4 network was shut down in 1991 due to poor ratings, and RNE Ràdio 4 once again became a standalone radio station.
In 2006 however, RNE Ràdio 4 was itself threatened with the prospect of closure due to a very low audience share (only 8,500 listeners in Catalonia out of a population of 7.5 million people). This sparked a campaign against closure of the station, which eventually proved successful after Santiago Gonzalez, the then newly appointed director of RNE (Radio Nacional de España), decided against closing Ràdio 4.