Rogerio Azcárraga: what is the relationship of the radio entrepreneur with Emilio Azcárraga, owner of Televisa

Last Monday night, it was announced about the death of one of the most important figures in the radio world in Mexico: Rogerio Azcárraga Madero, who served as chairman of the Board of Directors of Grupo Radio Formula, who died at the age of 94. This news was shared through Grupo Formula.

Azcarraga Madero was the son of Rogerio Azcarraga Vidaurreta, who died in 1951, and who founded Grupo Radio Formula. However, the station was originally concessioned by his brother Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta, who was the father of Emilio Azcarraga Milmo and grandfather of the current owner of Televisa, Emilio Azcarraga Jean.

Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta had already established the XEW and in 1951 he launched Channel 2, the flagship signal of today's Televisa.

Another of the Azcárraga Vidaurreta brothers, named Gastón, founded in 1967 the current Posadas Group, which operates the Fiesta Americana chain. When his son, Gastón Azcarraga Tamayo, his grandson, Gastón Azcárraga Andrade died, took over the hotel consortium at the age of 36. Gastón third, in 2005, bought Aeromexico, which five years later stopped operating due to financial problems. In 2014, he was issued an arrest warrant for handling illicit resources.

Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta outlined the features of the business profile that his brother Rogerio would assume. With experience as a shoe salesman and car dealer, in 1923 he obtained a license to distribute Victor Talking Machine radios. While working in RCA's Mexico Music division, Emilio became more interested in the radio industry.

His brother Raul received technical instructions to operate radio stations under the tutelage of U.S. Colonel Sandal S. Hodges. It is also said that Raúl Azcárraga Vidaurreta, was a pioneer of radio broadcasting in the country, since in 1923 he installed the CYL station, “La Casa de la Radio”.

Seeking a synergy between the radio business and the recorded music business, the music publishers PHAM-EMMI were born thanks to the vision of Rogerio Azcárraga Vidaurreta. However, just as in Grupo Televisa, Emilio El Tigre Azcárraga Milmo consolidated the company his father founded and defined it as the quasimonopoly of television in Mexico, so that his heir Emilio Azcárraga Jean would later sell half of Televisa Radio's shares, seeking capitalization, to the Spanish Grupo Prisa , the recent history of Radio Formula is linked to Rogerio Azcárraga Madero.

Radio Formula began, as such, in 1968, with a station that was initially called Radio Distrito Federal. His frequencies had a musical program, with the intention of introducing Rock'n Roll in Mexico, an objective that he achieved by relying on his company Discos Orfeon, founded in 1958. Orfeon began with the recording of the great artists of Mexican cinema and the golden age of music.

Radio historians point to the radio record player as a stage in which the arrival of true radio communication was delayed. And, in that sense, the interesting thing is that at a time when the profiles of the stations were described according to the musical genre they were programming, in 1987 Grupo Fórmula opted for talk radio by broadcasting a national news program.

The history of Radio Distrito Federal changes radically, due to the vision and entrepreneurial drive of Don Rogerio Azcárraga Madero, who modifies the format from musical to spoken on AM (Amplitude Modulated) stations, and programs of major content categories begin to be broadcast: news, sports, women's bar, finance and entertainment, led by various personalities, such as: León Michel, Don Pedro Ferríz Santacruz, Don Fernando Marcos, Luis Ignacio Santibáñez, Jorge Saldaña, Hector Lechuga, Flor Berenguer, Luis Cáceres, Jorge Zuniga and several others, who managed to place themselves in the audience's preference at that time with their programs.

KEEP READING: