Radio Reloj

The station is heard on various AM frequencies throughout the country and also on certain FM frequencies, such as 101.5 FM in Havana.

Radio Reloj started at 6am on 1 July 1947 and claims to be the first non-stop information channel in the world.

The news item is read against a background sound of continuous clock ticks every second. Every minute there is a station name announcement, a beep on the minute, a time announcement and "RR" .-. .-. in Morse code. On the top and bottom of each hour, the main news headlines are broadcast for two minutes. Both Manu Chao and Vocal Sampling have recorded musical "tributes" to these background ticks, in the songs "Me Gustas Tú" ("I like you") and "Radio Reloj", respectively.

The station's unusual style has required the use of short expressions that avoids the divorce between the speaker's spoken word and the word written by the editor or the reporter. Editors (rotate every 6 hours) have to write 13–15 lines for sheets which is read by a voice only (using for chronicles, interviews and others), and 15–16 lines for those which is read by two voices (using for news bulletins and information programs). Another rule is that the news bulletin must finish in exactly 60 seconds or less. Because of this, it is not uncommon for the on-air journalist to fill the remaining time with so-called queues like important events and curious facts, nor is it for him/her to accelerate the reading speed to finish the news on time. Also, because of this, there's usually a corrector working at any shift to check the minutes that're going to air and corrects the content/writing errors to meet the requirements. If the news is not finished after the beep, the journalist must say the word CONTINUARÁ to be able to continue, and if the news ends in the next minute, (s)he should say the word CONCLUSIÓN at the end. The exact time (not just minute, but hour as well) is also included.

Radio Reloj announces the time of 20 capital cities in the world every day at midday and midnight.

Radio Reloj claims that it broadcasts 300 news items every day, more than 50% of Cuba and the rest of the world.

Radio Reloj is always live 24 hours a day. There are usually two anchors during every news bulletin and each rotates every four hours. They don't normally finish their shift together. After one hour of reading news, the anchor has half an hour to rest. They will then come back and read another hour of news followed by a half an hour for resting.

In a two-voice format, there are four paragraphs in each sheet of writing from editors. The first announcer reads the first and third paragraph, whilst the second announcer reads the second and fourth ones.

Whilst one of the two main anchors is on the rest, a third anchor temporarily replaces them. This system is rotated for hours: an anchor stays for an hour as the first announcer, then they rotate to be the second announcer in the next hour.

In a one-voice format, all information is read by the same announcer. [1]

From its inception in 1947 until the Internet era, Radio Reloj was generally available only to listeners in Cuba; however, on occasion during a clear night (especially during the winter months), Radio Reloj could be heard in adjacent countries, and it generally has a good signal along the Florida Keys (from Islamorada to Key West) and some parts of Southwest Florida, due to this area being immediately north of Havana. A good example of DXing of Radio Reloj was on the morning of January 21, 1999 at 1:20am (Eastern Time), when US radio station WMCA, licensed in New York City and broadcasting on 570 AM (the same as Radio Reloj's Santa Clara signal), went off the air for transmitter maintenance. Once WMCA's carrier signal dropped, Radio Reloj's broadcast could be heard up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States including New York City, where WMCA originates its broadcasts.[2] Radio Reloj is also available free in satellite broadcast in Hispasat 30° W. Radio Reloj has also started broadcasting its programming via an Internet stream using any media player in decent albeit low bit-rate sound quality. The address for the live stream is http://www.radioreloj.cu/es/multimedia/radio-reloj-audio-en-vivo/