Roadrunner, roadrunner

I have a hunch that a Spanish general election is in the offing. It’s not because of the number of corruption cases hovering around the governing Socialist Party. It’s not because Junts per Catalunya has recently announced that the government hasn’t kept its promises and they can no longer be expected to support its initiatives. It’s not even because anyone has muttered about a motion of no confidence — nothing like that. No, my suspicion comes from something much slighter: Pedro Sánchez popped into the Radio 3 programme Generación Ya last week.

Radio 3, for the uninitiated, is the culture station of Spain’s state broadcaster, RTVE, Radio Televisión España, one of the radio stations that together form RNE, Radio Nacional de España. It’s nothing like the BBC’s Radio 3; the Spanish equivalent for classical music would be Radio Clásica. Radio 3’s natural habitat is contemporary music — rock, pop, indie, electronic, dance, and plenty that slips between the descriptive cracks. An eclectic mix that is a bit like Glastonbury in its ability to host Paul McCartney or Kneecap without blinking. To complete its cultural remit it also has programme slots for general art and culture, comics, video games and the like. It's a station that prides itself on being curated by humans rather than algorithms that endlessly recycle the most recent top 40.

Unlike the BBC, RTVE barely competes in the ratings. There’s no Traitors, no Strictly Come Dancing, and the main morning news show doesn’t remotely match the BBC’s Today programme in national influence. In fact, RTVE loses out to just about everyone — even the network run by the bishops — and especially to Cadena SER, whose morning show dominates talk-radio audiences. The single biggest radio programme in Spain isn’t news at all but Anda Ya, the morning zoo-radio circus on LOS40.

Radio 3’s audience numbers are tiny. Across the entire station it hovers just below 400,000 listeners a day, while that one LOS40 morning show pulls four or five times that on its own. And yet Radio 3 remains culturally important — a home for new music, niche interests, and a surprising amount of the country’s creative life.

I’m a big fan of it. In fact, I’m fond of Radio Nacional in general. I like their news coverage, and much of what I’ve picked up about Spanish history and culture has come from their programmes. Over the years I’ve formed a sort of bond with some of the presenters. They’ve led me to things that have made my life better than it would have been otherwise.

All of which is why I suspect that Pedro didn’t just wander in to chat to a random pair of Radio 3 presenters. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe he did slide into the studio from the presidential car purely for the novelty. But I doubt it. The programme on air at the time — as I said — was Generación Ya, a young, electronic-leaning show aimed at the millennial/Gen Z crowd, presented by Irene Valiente and Constan Sotoca. Pedro seemed genuinely delighted to be there. At one point he asked whether this was the studio from which most shows were broadcast, and he sounded almost boyishly impressed when told it was. When asked about his favourite Radio 3 programmes, he knew enough to sound authentic. It didn’t feel scripted. 

When the conversation turned to music, he mentioned Destroyer and Sharon Van Etten — neither of whom I knew — and Cala Vento, whom I did. And of course, he’d already listened to Rosalía’s new album LUX (how could he not?), declaring that he’d set aside an hour for it and thought it excellent. The next day, on a much more serious morning show, a pundit joked that it was a strange world when the President could take time off to listen to a “pop” record. So much for work–life balance.

But the combination of Rosalía, Radio 3 and an unusually relaxed presidential drop-in makes me wonder. Perhaps this was just a cultural cameo. Or perhaps — quietly, gently — the early election campaigning has already begun, ready for the moment when ERC and Sumar also slip away from the government. After all, if you want to reach younger, culturally plugged-in voters, Radio 3 is a surprisingly good place to start.