Babel World, the program directed by Juan Pablo Silvestre and the most listened to on Radio 3, will no longer be broadcast. As this newspaper has been able to know through its director, the space leaves the grill of the public music network after Silvestre was informed this Monday of the immediate end of broadcast, which means that last Saturday is the last program after more than two decades on the air. “They have abruptly interrupted it,” says Silvestre, who received a telephone call from RTVE Human Resources to terminate his employment relationship with the public entity. The public channel ensures that the departure of the veteran journalist is part of the retirement and early retirement plan of the collective bargaining agreements.

Babel World was broadcast every Saturday from 10:00 to 12:00 and had been on the air since the beginning of the year 2000. Under the unmistakable stamp of its director the magazine musical has been a space full of pampering and open to all kinds of music, in which the rock’n’roll primitive and the pop of the golden age with boleros, rumbas, bachatas, corridos, rancheras, waltzes and any music with the intention of transcending. From Italian music to French song, from Argentine tango to flamenco, from vintage jazz and blues to the most glittering pop, from Spanish folklore to African or Arabic, everything has been valid in this borderless territory of public radio.

From his eclecticism, Babel World It was also a place open to cultural reflection, giving way to voices from other artistic disciplines such as cinema, literature, painting or theater and even other areas such as science or religion. The guests were leaving their comments and reflections in thematic programs that were embellished with carefully selected music. The last program was called The art of checking yourself. Some more recent previous episodes were dedicated to the heart, death, loneliness or the concept of a couple. As its director always states: the important thing is the “mantra” in order to achieve “moods”.

A pioneering space

Juan Pablo Silvestre, a narrator with a taste to evoke in his programs, is the host of this space. The versatile journalist was previously responsible for programs such as The sound of the city, dancing in the streets (RNE), Pajamas for three O Red Babel (Radio 3). From 1987 to 1991 he was behind the well-known Radio 3 program Escape my love, a pioneering space in serving Latin music, interviewing Juan Luis Guerra and programming songs by Celia Cruz, Joe Arroyo, Willie Colón or Wilfredo Vargas.

Till the date, Babel World It is the most listened to program of the public chain with 196,000 listeners, according to the EGM. They follow him Everything starts today 1, directed by Ángel Carmona and with 153,000 listeners, and Take one, directed by Manolo Fernández and with 149,000 listeners. Precisely, Take one It was already off the grid at the beginning of this season when the management of Radio 3 decided not to renew last July a program that had been broadcast on the public body for 30 years.

Radio 3 has carried out a restructuring in which some of its most famous announcers have had to leave. At the exit of Juan Pablo Silvestre and Manolo Fernández, Julio Ruiz, at the head of Big Disc; José Miguel López, head of Discopolis; and Javier Tolentino, at the head of The Seventh Vice.

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