The Buenos Aires radio market and its property structure

An analysis of communication policies and the structure of an analogue industry (1983–2016)

Abstract

Media ownership in Argentina is a common object of study in investigations that analyze this system’s economic–political history. The present article aims to contribute to this tradition, offering a description and analysis of the structure of the radio market in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires since Argentina’s return to democracy (1983–2016). Our suggested itinerary covers the trading processes undertaken by broadcasting licensee associations in relation to the political changes and governments that succeeded each other during our chosen interval. The article begins with a description of the political and media situation in 1983. In later sections, it chronicles the relationship between politics, communication policies, and the radio system’s structure. Our time frame opens with Argentina’s return to democracy in 1983 and closes, in 2016, with Mauricio Macri’s first year as the country’s president. This span of thirty-odd years allows us to look at different governments, economic models, technological developments, and at the media market in general. The goal of this article is to interpret the behavior of capital in the Buenos Aires radio market from 1983 to 2016, and understand how this relates to what happened in the political and economic spheres. We seek to find relationships that either demonstrate or refute the influence of historical processes in the current state of this cultural industry.