Radio Campesina named ‘Network of the Year’
by top U.S.-Mexico Latin music chart authority
Radio Campesina, the nine-station educational Spanish-language radio network with 500,000 daily listeners in four states, walked away with “Network of the Year” award for regional Mexican format at the monitorLATINO Awards Gala attended by 1,000 industry professionals on Aug. 21 in Los Angeles. MonitorLATINO, founded in 2003, is the top authority in music chart monitoring for Latin music in both the United States and Mexico. (http://www.monitorlatino.com)
MonitorLATINO presents its awards show for excellence in radio and music every year, recognizing achievement among the most influential radio professionals both nationally and internationally. The Campesina radio network, operated by the Cesar Chavez Foundation under Network Programming Director Maria Barquin, was nominated for “Network of the Year, Regional Mexican format” on July 1, and competed for the award against some of the communication giants such an Entravision and Cumulus Media.
MonitorLATINO presents its awards show for excellence in radio and music every year, recognizing achievement among the most influential radio professionals both nationally and internationally. The Campesina radio network, operated by the Cesar Chavez Foundation under Network Programming Director Maria Barquin, was nominated for “Network of the Year, Regional Mexican format” on July 1, and competed for the award against some of the communication giants such an Entravision and Cumulus Media.
It emerged with the honor during the monitorLATINO gala at the Pacific Palms Resort in the City of Industry. Radio Campesina’s Maria Barquin, one of the few women programming directors of a national Spanish-language radio network, closed her acceptance speech by repeating “Si Se Puede!” (“Yes, We Can!”)—the slogan made famous by Radio Campesina’s founder, civil rights and farm labor leader Cesar Chavez.
The third largest Latino Spanish-format radio network in the nation, Radio Campesina is part of a larger movement realizing Cesar Chavez’s vision of Spanish-language radio that operates as a community center over the airwaves by entertaining, educating and actively involving its listeners in their communities, according to Paul F. Chavez, Cesar Chavez’s middle son and president of the Chavez foundation. “The network’s mission is enhancing the social and economic well being of the Latino community through a unique mix of popular regional Mexican music, news and quality, interactive educational programming,” Chavez says.
“Radio Campesina is more than a network of radio stations,” says Michael Nowakowski, executive vice president of network. “It is part of a movement that empowers and engages people on a daily basis.”In the last decade, the network has grown from one small rural station in California’s Central Valley to nine stations and broadcast licenses with syndicated programming reaching audiences every day in Arizona, California, Washington State, Oregon and across the border into northern Mexico. Radio Campesina ranks among the top stations in each of its markets.
By entertaining, educating and spurring its largely immigrant and first-generation listeners to actively participate in their communities, Radio Campesina is owned by Latinos and run by Latinos for the benefit of Latinos. It also serves as both a way to reach the Latino community and as a bridge between Latinos and the larger community in which they live. It presently operates on the air in the Central Valley through Bakersfield and Visalia; the Central Coast’s Salinas and Pajaro valleys; the Valley of the Sun out of Phoenix, Arizona; Yuma, Arizona as well as the neighboring Imperial Valley in California and northern parts of the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California; and the Tri-Cities area of Washington state and northeastern Oregon.
The Chavez foundation, a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization, builds or renovates and operates thousands of units of high-quality affordable housing in four states, operates a network of nine Spanish-language educational radio stations in four states reaching 500,000 daily listeners and runs educational tutoring programs for under-served children to boost their academic achievement and promote Cesar Chavez’s legacy through service-learning in California and Arizona. The foundation also created and manages the Visitors Center and Memorial Garden around Chavez’s gravesite, and Villa La Paz, the new 17,000 square foot educational and conferencing center, all within the 187-acre National Chavez Center at La Paz in Keene, Calif.