CMQ (640 kHz) was a commercial

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. It had a large audience in the 1940s and 1950s, attracting listeners with programs that included music, sports, talk and news. It later expanded into a television station and network. The radio station was heard on the clear channel frequency of 640 AM, powered at 50,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s, making it audible around the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

and

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...

at night. The TV station broadcast on Channel 6 in Havana, later expanding to seven stations around the island.

History

Radio

The company was founded on March 12, 1933, by Miguel Gabriel and Ángel Cambó. Ten years later, on August 1, 1943, half of it was acquired by the business group of Goar Mestre. In the beginning, CMQ Radio transmitted only in the capital. But broadcasts later were expanded to the rest of the country using

broadcast relay station A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater ( two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tr ...

s. The CMQ 640 radio studios were initially located on Calle Monte, on the corner of Paseo del Prado. On March 12, 1948, the studios and offices were moved to the Radiocentro Building on La Rampa and Calle L in El Vedado.

Television

Pre-revolutionary Cuba was an early adopter of new technology, including TV. Cuba was the first Latin American country to have television. In December 1946, station CM-21P conducted an experimental multi-point live broadcast. Regular commercial broadcasting began in October 1950 with Gaspar Pumarejo's Unión Radio TV. This was followed by Goar Mestre Espinosa's CMQ-TV. It was founded on December 18, 1950, and began experimental broadcasts. CMQ-TV officially signed on the air on . It became a

network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or a ...

of NBC for news and sports, which was translated into Spanish.

CMQ Network

By 1954, CMQ-TV had expanded into a seven-station network. Cuba became the second country in the world, only after the United States, to have a national TV network.Encyclopedia of Television, Volume 1, Horace Newcomb, p.636
/ref> At the beginning of the 1950s, the transmission of the

telenovela A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar Drama (film and television), drama genres around the w ...

''El Derecho de Nacer'', by Felix B. Caignet, proved popular with audiences. CMQ-TV displaced the competing station, RHC Cadena Azul, as the top television network. After the

revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

, CMQ-AM-TV, as other privately-owned broadcast operations, were taken over by the Cuban government. In 1960, AM 640 no longer used the CMQ

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

, its pre-revolutionary identity. It became the flagship station of the Radio Liberacion network.

Timeline

Source: ''Encyclopedia of Television'', Volume 1, Horace Newcomb, p.636
/ref> * 1952: Video network linking the provincial capitals established * 1952: regular use of the kinescope * 1954: CMQ-TV transmits the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...

between the U.S. and Cuba using an airplane as a relay * 1957: direct transmission of regular, live signal between the U.S. and Cuba, using the "Over the Horizon" system

References

{{Authority control Television in Cuba Radio in Cuba Television channels and stations established in 1950 Radio stations in Cuba 1933 establishments in Cuba 1959 disestablishments in Cuba Television channels and stations disestablished in 1959 Radio stations disestablished in 1959 Radio stations established in 1933