Radio y Televisión Martí
Radio y Televisión Martí
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Radio y Televisión Martí

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Radio y Televisión Martí

Radio y Televisión Martí is an American state-run radio and television international broadcaster based in Miami, Florida, financed by the federal government of the United States through the U.S. Agency for Global Media (formerly Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG). It transmits its programs in Spanish to Cuba and its broadcasts can also be heard and viewed worldwide through their website and on shortwave radio frequencies.

Named after the Cuban national hero and intellectual José Martí, Radio Televisión Martí was established in 1983 and TV Martí was added in 1990. The 2014 budget for the Cuba broadcasting program was approximately US$27 million.

Radio y Televisión Martí is overseen by the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), and is an element of the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB).

On 14 March 2025, the second Trump administration issued an executive order dismantling the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, the parent agency of the Cuban Broadcasting Bureau, which oversees radio and television. As a result, all Radio Televisión Martí employees were placed on administrative leave with pay, and instructed not to seek to access buildings or computer systems.

On 26 March 2025, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, through its Office for Cuba Broadcasting, notified federal employees, who had been placed on leave on 15 March 2025, that they could return to work at Radio Martí in Doral, Florida.

On 26 March 2025, Radio Martí announced it was returning to the air on X (formerly Twitter), and Martí Noticias website resumed publishing.

In the early 1980s, the U.S. Government planned to create a radio station to be known as Radio Free Cuba, modeled on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the mission of fighting communism in the hope of hastening the fall of Cuban President Fidel Castro. The station – renamed Radio Martí after Cuban writer José Martí, who had fought for Cuba's independence from Spain and against U.S. influence in the Americas – was established in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan at the urging of Jorge Mas Canosa. Existing North American broadcasters objected strenuously to the establishment of Radio Martí, fearing that its broadcasts would lead Cuba to retaliate by jamming existing commercial medium-wave broadcasts from Florida.

On May 20, 1985, Radio Martí began broadcasts to Cuba from the United States. The first day of broadcasting was chosen to commemorate the 83rd anniversary of Cuba's independence from United States rule on May 20, 1902. The fears of broadcasters proved well-founded, when Cuba-based transmitters briefly broadcast powerful signals on the medium-wave band in 1985, disrupting U.S. AM radio station broadcasts in several states. Cuba continues to broadcast interference against U.S. broadcasts specifically directed to Cuba in attempts to prevent them from being received within Cuba.

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