Radio Mambí — one of Miami’s most iconic Spanish-language radio stations — will effectively lose its live voice at midnight Friday night, in a further sign that a three-year-long effort to create more moderate Latino broadcasting in South Florida hasn't panned out.
Mambí's ownership and management said the station, which will now air a music format, is just the latest hit by the economic and demographic realities facing Spanish-language media today.
In a statement, Mambí General Manager Mike Sena said the outlet and "its audience and the media industry are rapidly evolving, presenting financial challenges for many in the marketplace."
"Sadly, as of 11:59 pm on December 12, we will close our live news/talk chapter," he added.
Mambí's live programming staff will be let go, according to a management source, though a minimal team will be kept on for sports broadcasting — the station will continue to air Miami Marlins and Heat games — and advertising commitments.
For four decades, Radio Mambí — WAQI 710 AM — has been synonymous with Miami’s Cuban and other Latino exile communities.
The station "welcomed presidents, governors, mayors, dissidents and political prisoners cultural icons, and community voices," the statement said.
But along the way, critics said it also gained a reputation for anti-communist extremism and right-wing misinformation.
As a result, in 2022 a bipartisan, Democrat-led investor group, Latino Media Network, which included liberal billionaire George Soros, bought Mambí and another popular Miami Spanish-language AM station, WQBA.
Latino Media hoped to make them more moderate and factual news and talk platforms.
READ MORE: Mambí Muddle: Has a major Spanish-language radio reform venture failed in Miami?
But last summer it shut down WQBA’s news and talk programming — which it had hired celebrity Latino broadcaster Oscar Haza to lead — leaving the station with an all-music format.
It’s now doing the same at Radio Mambí.
Critics, however, say Latino Media Network's Miami venture — part of a $60 million purchase of 18 Spanish-language stations across the U.S. — stumbled on its own from a lack of commitment and local market awareness.
They complain it did not do enough to change or promote WQBA or Mambí for a new audience — and that Mambí's right-wing tone and penchant for misinformation have moderated little since the group bought it three years ago.
“If anything, it got even worse,” Fernand Amandi, a Cuban-American Democrat who heads the Miami polling firm Bendixen & Amandi, recently told WLRN.
The Latino Media acquisitions, he added, were in the end "a spectacular failure."
Latino Media Network co-founder Stephanie Valencia, however, recently insisted to WLRN that the project had been making progress, but that current media "headwinds are disproportionately impacting the Spanish-language media environment, in particular on the [news] talk format."
Valencia, who insists the plan was never to turn the stations from Republican to Democratic mouthpieces but rather "new sources of balanced journalism," disagreed with the Mambí criticism:
"[W]e have instituted standards and guidelines [at Mambí] for differentiating opinion from fact, and to use credible sources," she said.
"It's not something that can be fixed overnight."
Others point out that while Latinos have traditionally relied on radio for their news and information more than most communities do, a younger and more bilingual audience is now moving to social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
Mambí said it will still air archived talk programming as well as the Marlins and Heat events.
