Joaquim Manuel da Fonseca

RCM Director

Rádio Clube de Monsanto started by being a cooperative of limited responsibility, founded in 1985, with a social capital value of 29.500 euros. Presently is a one member partnership, with a social capital value of 50.000 euros.

Citing its statues, the objective is “… to create and to keep in the terms of law, a broadcasting radio station in Monsanto, with regional characteristics”.

In pursuance of its purposes, Rádio Clube de Monsanto will try to:

- Promote and defend the national identity, by contributing for the prestige and strengthening of the Beira Interior values;

- Divulge and promote Portuguese music and most of all the cultural values of Monsanto – “The Most Portuguese Village”;

- Organize and sponsor, in respect to the rigour and the plurality of opinions, formative and informative programs about reputed subjects of interest for the regional community.

Through these twenty years, the motivation and the encouragement that led to its creation remains unalterable, always with the objective to fill an empty space in this so forgotten Beira Interior zone, with such a valuable history and culture, plenty of vestiges from a inestimable valuable past  and having still a considerable secular estate to discover.
Since 1985 we have been living in a daily straggle. The RCM licensing or legalization was a delicate process. But the effort was worth it, we are on air twenty four hours a day and we have a great audience that has always been faithful. Only this way it was possible to win the successive challenges: new senders, adequate business premises and obtaining the license, which was paid by public subscription from the regional community. Exclusively, thanks to the generosity of our listeners and advertisers, we reconstructed the Radio House where we ended up spending thousands of euros. We are the very few senders in the region with our own premises. We have the most hi-tech equipment. We don’t have any debts and through these last 20 years, thanks to our dedication, sacrifice and resignation we achieved a considerable patrimony. In 1996 it was assigned us the Statute of Public Utility, our path was taken by humility, seriousness, determination and without mortgaging the future.

We bought an apartment in Castelo Branco, and, in 20 of January 2005 we began the broadcasting from the new Production Centre, with some weekly hours exclusively dedicated to debates and information. We invested thousands of euros in more studio equipment. Today we can count on two dozens of specialized collaborators in many subjects with their knowledge and thoughts. It’s from Castelo Branco that we broadcast through the internet to the five continents of the globe.

However, we will continue to produce popular and traditional contents, with our simple way to be in Radio, with the simplicity that characterizes us for more than twenty years in Monsanto, and the timbre of more than forty years on servicing a  Radiophonic cause, always in the intransigent defence of Portuguese music and cultural values.

Is with a lot of hurt we say this: Monsanto’s village is condemned to a human desertification. The very few youngsters we have here don’t seem to receive any stimulation to settle in this chunk of Christmas land, after the studies are finished they leave to Lisbon or to foreigner countries.

I judge that, in these last two decades, a lot has been done and we will not be discouraged, because we believe and we trust the RCM true friends that thanks to god they are many as it was proved with a study made by Marktest when they credited us the district audience leader. We are the second most internet heard Portuguese radio station. Beyond the popular reputation that has characterized us, we will equally do our best to conquer other types of audiences spread through Beira Alta, Beira Baixa, Alto Alentejo, Estremadura, Spain and now also through the world. Considering the regionalist vocation, RCM has transmitted, sponsored and carried out the edition of traditional cancioneiro sounds and diverse regional groupings. Through the radio station had passed dozens of professional and amateur artists who have been interviewed so they have the opportunity to promote and divulge their work. Governmental identities, institutional responsibles such as: cultural institutions, social institutions, religious institutions, etc.., had found at 98.7 FM and 107.8 FM an authentic tribune of people, where we can speak with the people and to the people.
In the general lines of our programming, as the map proves, our absolute priority continues to be the spreading of Portuguese Music and our cultural values. It is based on this that more than 80% of RCM´s transmission is Portuguese Music, from all type of sources: Portuguese folk, children’s music and stories, traditional Portuguese music, old time melodies, Lisbon’s Fado, Coimbra´s Fado, Portuguese modern music etc.. Brazilian and African music had not been forgotten, deserving also a very special attention. There’s also place for some weekly hours of Spanish Music, French Music, Italian Music, Anglo-American Music, Latin American Music, Instrumental and Classic Music, Requested music etc. To highlight the sonorous archive of the RCM, this is constituted with more than 100,000 titles in tapes, records and CD´s. About 50.000 songs are already recorded on hard disk and are being automatically managed in simultaneous with adverts, by a sophisticated computer system, with an autonomous continuous broadcasting of more than 90 days. In the RCM programming timetable, is included the national and the international news every hour, (Antena 1production) between 9.00 am to 11:00 pm and the local news (RCM´s production) at 7.30, 9, 11, 14, 17, 20, 21, 22 and 23 hours.
Now, that we are integrated in the CE, keeping our traditional ways and the essential characteristics of the old village, our people demands access to a better life, building a well deserved happy new future.  Our popular culture has to be of more value for the European community. Our musical patrimony and the wealth of our traditions, should win inside the dynamics of integration a proper space, which will distinguish and identify us in the “breast” of the so spoken “global village” of this old continent and the Planet Earth.
Here in the heart of Beira-Baixa, Portugal, Radio Clube de Monsanto also wants to be the Friendship Bridge with the Portuguese communities, spread in the seven departures of the world and with all the Portuguese language speakers, because we have pride in our History.

As a true Radio Station of Proximity, and now also with its own Internet Website www.radiomonsanto.pt and the online broadcasting, Radio Clube de Monsanto, wants to be always in the first row of this combat, so that we will never lose the identity of our people, with hard temper, hard is the granite rock that characterizes and tipificalizes  the “Most Portuguese Village”, the “ Rock Ship” , as the well known writer and Monsanto’s good friend Dr. Fernando Namora called it.

May 2006