ABSTRACT
It was not until 1923 that the Mexican federal government authorised the first commercial stations. From that time on, the industry gathered momentum. The 1920s were years of great political turbulence and the armed struggles among the various revolutionary factions inevitably had grave economic consequences. The government, preoccupied with survival and reconstruction as well as shaping a viable foreign policy, was too busy to pay much attention to the radio industry. The advent of commercial radio was therefore not directly affected by government policies. The major impetus to the development and expansion of the radio industry came in the 1930s, with consequences at both the quantitative and qualitative levels. Radio Cadena Continental, founded in 1942, linked ten stations in Mexico City at certain hours, thereby saturating the ‘dial’ with the same programmes.
