From the Radio World Who’s Buying What page: Over the past four years, Colombian public broadcaster RTVC Sistema de Medios Públicos has been rolling out a network of “emisoras de paz” peace stations in parts of the country heavily affected by past conflict between the government armed rebels.
As part of section 6.5 of the 2016 peace agreement that ended the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People s Army (FARC-EP) insurgency, the Colombian government committed to establishing 20 peace and reconciliation stations by 2026. The first of these stations went on air July 25, 2019.
The four newest stations, like the 12 established before them, are designed as decentralized, two-studio set ups. At the heart of each control room is a 16-channel DHD Audio SX2 console for live broadcasting and a four-input dual-layer SX2 mixer for recording. Bogotá-based ASPA ANDINA facilitated the sale and installation of the consoles, working with Rohde & Schwarz Colombia.
Vicente Silva, director of Radio Nacional de Colombia, said the peace stations are designed to encourage dialogue without party banners or economic or ideological interests. Each station creates 104 hours of content per month.
In 2022, RNC officials noted that 47 people, members of social organizations, victims’ associations and former FARC-EP militants via the Ecomún cooperative have been trained in radio production techniques to staff the stations. The peace stations are branded as part of RNC, but their programming is tailored to the language and interests of the specific transmission area.
The four new stations are in Fundación, Magdalena; San José, Guaviare; San Vicente del Caguán, Caquetá; and Tumaco, Nariño. They join a dozen peace stations operating in Florida, Valle; Bojayá, Chocó; Arauquita, Arauca; Puerto Leguizamo, Putumayo; Algeciras, Huila; El Tambo, Cauca; Chaparral, Tolima; Ituango, Antioquia; Convención, Norte de Santander; Fonseca, La Guajira; San Jacinto, Bolívar; and Mesetas, Meta.
ASPA ANDINA engineer Juan Pablo León noted that 11 of the existing peace stations are similarly equipped with DHD SX2 consoles with operational capacity for up to 128 bidirectional AoIP channels using the DANTE protocol.
