Mexican Music on the Radio

Another sign of the influence of Mexican culture in America is through radio stations. Cable carriers generally carry the same television channels across the country, so everyone gets Univision and Telemundo, among others; however, there is a little more freedom with radio stations, which can change from one mile to the next.

Twelve Spanish-language radio stations broadcast in Southern Arizona, and that number is growing, according to ontheradio.net. The high number of Spanish-language stations in the region is indicative of the fact that it is close to the border, and people who travel across the border are tuning into stations that they can understand--much like Americans trying to find a station that plays their favorite music or talk radio shows when they travel across the country.

Spanish-language radio stations have even started taking over the radio signals of local radio. A few years ago, the Phoenix radio station The Edge, which had the signals 100.3 and 106.3, was bought out by a Spanish-language media company. The English-language Edge moved to a new signal on 103.9, but its two old signals became Spanish-language stations.

With the rise in Spanish radio has come a rise in the popularity of Spanish musicians, and they are not just attracting Spanish-speaking crowds. Huge numbers of people attend shows by performers such as Shakira, who sings in both English and Spanish, and Juanes, who only sings in Spanish. The language barriers have not hindered them, however, as people who don't even speak Spanish show up to the shows.

According to an article in AdWeek, despite the large number of Spanish-language radio stations in Southern Arizona, the signals do not transfer across the border into Mexico because the mountains and hills along the border interrupt the signal. In border cities like El Paso and San Diego, radio stations are able to broadcast from those cities and reach an audience in the areas on the opposite side of the border because they are surrounded by flat lands. As a result, the radio stations can make more money, with more stations reaching a larger audience and more advertisers trying to reach that audience.

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Information for this post was taken from http://www.ontheradio.net/metro/Tucson_AZ.aspx and http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003547252