Ràdio Valira: from Andorra’s first FM to a media group

Gualbert Osorio recounts the first two decades of Ràdio Valira in a new monograph now on sale. Founded in 1985 and beginning regular broadcasts in January 1986 on 93.3 MHz, the station was the first FM broadcaster in Andorra and emerged from the ashes of Radio Andorra. Its founders, Josep Rabadà and Osorio, had acquired the rights to Radio Manresa for transmission in Andorra and staffed much of the new station with former Radio Andorra personnel.

In the early 1990s Ràdio Valira survived a turbulent period marked by the arrival of Radio Nacional, with which it even shared premises between 1991 and 1996. Osorio says the station at times felt like a temporary employment agency for RNA. The collapse of the CASS project, which aimed to build a broad regional network, left a void that led Valira’s owners to seek partnerships. They persuaded prominent broadcaster Luis del Olmo to join the venture: in exchange for a 20% stake, Ràdio Valira agreed to air Del Olmo’s morning show Protagonistas daily and could draw on programming from his other outlets. The arrangement boosted audience figures and advertising revenue and even enabled an annual nationwide broadcast of Protagonistas from the Principality.

Those years brought high demand for advertising and what Osorio remembers as a golden era for local radio. The station developed notable programs such as La guardiola, live basketball coverage including ACB promotion and the Korac Cup, coverage of the 1989 Small States Games in Cyprus, Punt de lluna and La tertúlia. Studios moved from the original Doctor Nequi premises to more professional facilities on the first floor of Casa Felipó, spaces inherited from Radio Andorra. The monograph also recalls contributors and voices who shaped the station: Michel Brard, Joan Carles Homs, Toni Hormigo, Manel Fabregat, Toni Corominas, Joan Domènech, Mari Carme Grau, Kiko Cavanilles, Jordi Ferrer, Joan Antoni Sarmiento and Noemí Rodríguez, who wrote the book’s prologue.

Osorio traces a turning point to 1999, when the government under Marc Forné liberalized the radio spectrum and issued ten new concessions. He argues the move saturated the market, created fierce competition and encouraged predatory pricing, all taking place without sufficient regulation. Public broadcasters and major foreign services already active in the market—RNE, Catalunya Ràdio, France Inter, France Musique and Ràdio Principat among them—combined with the new entrants to produce what Osorio calls an “uncontrolled pantagruelic feast,” with local operators struggling to compete for advertising.

Ultimately Ràdio Valira survived by integrating into the Cadena Pirenaica in 2006, closing the chapter on its independent “heroic” decades. The new book, presented at the Organyà book fair in September, offers an insider chronicle of that radio and business miracle: a station that began as a successor to earlier regional broadcasters, helped define Andorran FM, and four decades on continues on air within a wider media conglomerate.