Radio Radicale is the official radio station of the Italian Radical Party and its successor, the Italian Radicals.
Founded in 1976 as part of the Radio libere ("Free Radio”) movement, it has no commercial advertisements and is partly funded by the party, with support from the Italian government as part of an agreement for the broadcasting of Parliamentary sessions.
History
upright=0.7|thumb|Former director [[Massimo Bordin.|right]]
Radio Radicale was founded between 1975 and 1976 by a group belonging to the Radical Party in a small apartment near Villa Pamphili, in the Gianicolense district of Rome.
Following the liberalization of radio broadcasting by the Constitutional Court between 1974 and 1976, and the spread of small private radio stations, Radio Radicale was known for its use of low-cost equipment but it stood out for its particular philosophy. Radio Radicale set out to create a valid public service alternative to the state broadcaster RAI, using the name “Radicale” (radical not just in reference to its role as a party organ but also for an editorial policy characterized by impartiality, professionalism and innovation. The initiative of uncensored phone calls was repeated in 1991 and 1993.
The official website was created in 1998, expanding the station’s audio programming with multimedia content. The full archive was placed online for free download.
Recent events
In 1997, the Prodi I Cabinet refused to renew the agreement with Radio Radicale for the broadcast of parliamentary sessions and RAI began to develop its own dedicated radio station 7 years since the law which instituted it. Important cultural and political personalities asked the government to consider the so-called "Mammì bill"—which obliged Rai to create a parliamentary radio channel—null and void. The proposal was to extend the agreement with Radio Radicale for another 3 years, and to allow for a call for tender when the contract would come up for renewal.
Following a political debate with demonstrations and nonviolent initiatives by the Radicals, the Parliament approved the law Nº 224 of 11 July 1998 concerning Radio broadcasting of Parliament's work and benefits for publishing. The law established the call for tender as a stipulation of the agreement and renewed the contract with Radio Radicale for another three years. RAI’s obligation to broadcast parliamentary sessions was kept, but the public company was prevented from extending its radio network until the entry into force of the telecommunications general reform.
In 2001, 2004 and 2006, the agreement with Radio Radicale was renewed according to the stipulations of the financial law. Under the contract, Radio Radicale has to broadcast, between 8 am and 9 pm, at least 60% of the annual total number of hours dedicated by the Parliament to the sessions in the chambers. Those broadcasts cannot be interrupted, preceded or followed, for a period of thirty minutes from their beginning and their end, by commercial or political advertisements.
Renewal of the agreement (2010–2013)
For 2010 and 2011, the agreement with the Ministry of Economic Development included a €9.9 million funding for Centro di produzione S.p.a. For 2012, two laws of 2011 allowed a total expenditure of €10 million and for 2013 the same amount was confirmed in 2012.
Renewal in 2018-2019
Up to 2018, Radio Radicale received €8.2 million, according to the agreement with the Ministry of Economic Development for the broadcast of parliamentary sessions, and another €4 million as acontribution to their publishing activities. has prolonged the agreement for the parliamentary session broadcasting by Radio Radicale for only one semester, allocating €5 million gross (€4 million net) for the year 2019.
Organization
Hours of audio and video recordings are made every year through a system of connections with public institutions and events. Signals are received through fixed or temporary lines by wire, radio, satellite or digital links and, when using analog telephone lines, recordings are immediately digitalised by an encoding system which produces ten channels at the same time around the clock. Once the signal reaches the main headquarters, the different signals are diffused through an active matrix system which allows the distribution of 128 signals. In the same year, the archive was quoted in the volume Fonti orali: censimento degli istituti di conservazione published by the Italian Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage, (The Multimedial Archive of Radio Radicale: an Heritage for History, Information, Democracy), organized by RR along with the Doctorate of Research on European History and the Archivists and Librarists Special School of the Sapienza University of Rome, various critics and archivist agreed in recognizing not only the historical and social value of the archival production of Radio Radicale, but also its complementarity with the main collections of Italian documents, first of all those belonging to RAI. The former manager of Rai Teche, Barbara Scaramucci, stated that: