The sound engineer, apparently removed from all official propaganda, also receives requests not to broadcast certain “controversial opinions.”
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, March 17, 2025 — A few weeks ago Adriano resigned from Radio Ciudad del Mar, the local station in Cienfuegos where he had worked as a sound engineer since his college graduation. The decision cost him, especially because of the uncertainty of not knowing if he was going to find another job that he would enjoy as much. But he tells this newspaper that he does not regret putting a stop to what was happening inside the medium: “No one has the right to think for me or put words in my mouth.”
Working on the radio was not a dream he had as a child, but as a teenager, when he became interested in the work of Radio Ciudad del Mar, located in a two-story house in front of the Cienfuegos boardwalk. He was not so attracted to talking on the programs as to doing them himself, taking care of the music and sounds, and after graduating from Physical Culture he managed to sneak into the station.
However, with the work of a sound engineer, apparently far from all official propaganda, also came requests not to give certain “controversial opinions.” “The time came when it was impossible to broadcast one’s real thoughts or give opinions different from what is established on social networks and in the studio itself,” he says.
“The time came when it was impossible to broadcast one’s real thoughts or give opinions different from what is established on social networks and in the studio itself”
For Adriano the threshold of the door of Radio Ciudad del Mar marked the border between two different realities. Inside, the team and especially the announcers, “are continuously forced to broadcast news that is very distant from reality.” Outside, in the street, “we face criticism from listeners who call us liars or say we gloss over things that are serious. We find ourselves locked between what we’re supposed to say and what we experience daily as part of society.”
“It is very difficult to work in a place where anything that we do must have the approval of those from above. Creativity is subordinated to an institutional methodology, which in turn is subordinate to the orders from Havana,” explains the young Cienfuegan, who admits that, although surveillance is general, some people are more controlled than others. In the case of broadcasters, “the censorship is constant and comes from advisors, assistants and program directors. Whatever is minimally problematic is crushed by editorial policy, which is actually a straitjacket,” he says.
In recent years, with the intensification of the crisis, controls on the station’s employees have also increased. At the same time, Adriano adds, there are the practical problems: How do you broadcast without power? How do you record a program in a closed studio without air conditioning? How do you work without microphones, with old computers and sound equipment from decades ago?
“No one imagines how suffocating it is to work besieged by blackouts. The station’s generator does not support the equipment and air conditioners at the same time,” says the sound engineer, who reveals the tricks they used in the station to evade the suffocating heat. “While a program was running, we were bathed in sweat. Sometimes we played two or three songs in a row to have a few minutes to go out and catch the cool air that comes from the bay,” he confides.
When a complaint was made to the superiors for not being able to connect the air conditioners or because the equipment was now too old and needed a replacement, “the response of the National Radio Directorate was always the same: there are no resources and the country faces a complex situation.”
This situation is also to the detriment of the audience, which is already diminished by the emergence of alternative means of information, more truthful, faster and which consume less of the public’s time. “If serious surveys were conducted at the station to evaluate audience levels, it would show that most people even prefer social networks to the radio to get information. In theory, the programming is designed for different audiences, but in practice it is very far from pleasing popular tastes,” he says.
As he explains, the station broadcasts live programs until ten at night. “From that time on, everything that is heard is recorded and, it must be said, it is not consistent with the demands of the early morning. Thus, an important segment of the population is lost, which deserves spaces capable of attracting the attention of radio subscribers,” he argues.
For a while, when Adriano saw several colleagues leave the radio to work in other state or private-sector centers, the question of whether he should leave worried him. The “thing,” he says, was having to choose between doing what he likes with a salary that does not reach 4,000 pesos – it depends on the number of programs that are made – along with constant surveillance, or giving priority to his discomfort with the censorship and a better pay.
But a month ago, when he learned that his wife was pregnant again, the indecision cleared up. However, Adriano assures that he did not leave the station just to ensure the family economy but that the pregnancy was only a catalyst. Between proposals to cut down to the least “subversive tone” and the frustration of not being able to do his job with quality, his departure from Radio Ciudad del Mar was “inevitable.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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