“We have lived live the most fascinating history of Marbella”.
Onda Cero celebrates twenty-five years in Marbella, a quarter of a century in which they have been witnesses and protagonists of the life of a town, which is also much more than that: an emblem, a benchmark of quality tourism in our country, with all that this implies.
José Navajas, its director, has been with the station from the beginning. He started the station, has seen it grow and consolidate, and can now boast of being part of the most listened to station in the city.
His radio history, that of Pepe Navajas, as he is known around the world, began in his native Cordoba, where he started working in the competition, the SER chain. “I had been there for eight years when the opportunity arose to come to Marbella with Rueda de Emisoras Rato, a network owned by the Rato family that later passed to ONCE and later to the Planeta group”.
“Although I’m from Cordoba, I always thought that my destiny was to come to Marbella,” says Navajas.
-He’s been here since ’86, so he’s experienced firsthand a fascinating part of life in this city….
-I have lived it in the front line of fire. And look at the things that have happened here in this time…. The truth is that we have lived live the most interesting history of Marbella.
-Could you say that this station and you are intimately linked?
-Absolutely. We are one and the same. A lot of people have passed through here, and others have been with me practically from the beginning.
I have shared years with magnificent professionals who have later excelled in the world of communication or in other fields, but who grew professionally alongside me.
-Can you give me a name?
-José Luis Salas, who is still with the network, José Antonio Nieto, who was manager of the Center for Tourist Initiatives in Marbella, Fran García, Pepa Rosales, etc. There are people who were at Onda Cero Internacional and then worked at the BBC…. In short, in so many years there have been many who have contributed their work and dedicated their time to us.
Are these twenty-five years the best twenty-five years of Marbella for you?
-Yes, but I am answering as a media director, as a journalist. Informatively, absolutely exciting things have happened here in the last few years.
Marbella is one of the Spanish cities that has opened more newscasts, that has occupied more space in newspapers, on radio stations … come on, at the height of Madrid, Barcelona or other large municipalities.
There is no other place with as much news impact, for better or worse, as this city: from a tourist or political point of view.
-In these years you have built up a unique sound archive. What characters would you highlight from this time?
This file is part of a work that we are still developing and that we want to deliver to the citizens of Marbella and the rest of the country, in which we will describe visually what has happened in this station in the last twenty-five years, a lot of photos of popular people who have been here, also of endearing people of this city. To this graphic work we are going to add a sound file so that everyone can relive their voices.
Characters like Jaime de Mora, Menchu, Alfonso de Hohenlohe, María de Salamanca… in short, many who are no longer with us. To those here we must add others such as Sean Connery, President Suarez, Camilo José Cela, Mario Vargas Llosa… an endless list of celebrities and personalities from the world of culture, politics, arts, etc.
-Marbella is considered something like the golf capital of Europe, and its radio station, as it could not be otherwise, has also been strongly identified with this tourist and sporting world…
-Yes, we are a local Marbella radio station and we breathe what this city breathes, so we necessarily have to breathe golf. We cannot live with our backs turned to the sport, which is one of the main tourist attractions of this great brand that is Marbella.
For ten years we have organized the Pro-Am Protagonistas that Luis del Olmo does at La Quinta, we have supported many tournaments and we have collaborated with other charitable events… We have covered big events such as the Ryder Cup, etc.
We are intimately connected to golf because the land gives it to us: we live and work in a great golf destination for all European amateurs.
-Is that why one of your 25th anniversary events is going to be a golf tournament?
-Yes, for all that I have said, one of our central events of the anniversary will be a great golf tournament that we are going to celebrate at the Flamingos Golf Club (in the municipality of Benahavís, bordering Marbella) on June 25.
It will have a charitable character, although we have not yet decided to which institution we are going to dedicate it. We want it to be a milestone at least in the Costa del Sol, and we also want it to be a success in terms of registrations, participation, etc., because of the character that both we and the owner of the course, Ricardo Arranz, have wanted to give it.
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