1992 – autumn – Radio Nova 22, part 2
In the studio, there was an older guy than me, probably just over 30 years old, who I later found out was also an architect. He welcomed me with a smile, both from his mouth and eyes, and introduced himself: Adi Popescu. He was one of the founding members of the radio, but I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t recognize Adi’s name from the radio, probably because I didn’t listen to the radio at the time he was broadcasting, around three in the afternoon. I sat down next to him trying not to tremble. He explained that he would take the reins, meaning that he would support my interventions from a technical point of view, opening the way to the mixer and pressing the buttons on the devices. Since I only had cassettes, it was easy. He opened the microphone channel and introduced me as a friend of the radio who came to play some music and spend “an hour with us.” I spoke too, choking on every syllable, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. The first song I played (ever on the radio) was Bob Dylan‘s “I Want You“ from “Blonde on Blonde“. An honorable debut. If I had been at Contact, I probably wouldn’t have been able to go on the air with my music, let alone Bob Dylan during the day. I suppose they already had a mandatory playlist. Contact was making money, not radio for the sake of radio or the culturalization of the masses. They also had a shareholder-director to match: Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, a catastrophic politician like (almost) any other.
My first visit to Radio Nova was not my last. People liked me and they invited me to the second and third shows, where I was welcomed in turn by DJ Radu Săpunărescu and Dorin Odiațiu, both very patient and smiling. In other words, I had a chance not only to meet Chifiriuc, but also to be part of the team soon. I was suffocating with happiness, unfortunately before confirmation. My third show at Nova was sometime in November 1992. Soon there would be auctions for frequencies at the CNA, newly established and unfortunately dominated by figures not exactly friendly to the new wave of radios. At the time, we condemned the dinosaurs, after all, most of them were big members of the Communist Party. That is, they had and continued to have power and influence, probably even money. And the CNA had quickly become a corrupt power tool of the party, then the FSN, the inheritor of the PCR. And it would be used as such by every party that would come to power. In any case, Radio Nova needed a broadcasting license because at the time it first aired, there was no institution to authorize it, CNA being established later. The broadcasting license on 92.7 was taken by Mihai Cîrciog, a press magnate of the time who had a great influence through the newspaper Evenimentul Zilei led by Ion Cristoiu (who had worked at Nova) and other publications he owned. At the same time, Cornel Nistorescu received a broadcasting license on frequency 94.2, where Total Radio, a radio that remained parked there, meaning it was never significant, even though well-known people worked there, including Andrei Gheorghe or Cosmin Prelipceanu. And, of course, there was still a broadcasting license in the western band, on 102.8 MHz, for a completely unknown businessman at the time.
He had been the secretary of the party at the country’s only documentary film studio, Alexandru Sahia. The former activist and graduate of the film camera operator section at the Faculty of Theatre and Film was named Adrian Sîrbu. I do not know if he participated in any auction or how he obtained the license, nor when. But on 102.8 you can still listen to a radio called ProFm today, if you like what happens on that frequency.
As for Nova 22, it exists not only by name. It has been broadcasting online for about two years, with a few sentimental members from the former team. Then, in 1992, after not being allocated a license, the team decided to end the year with a New Year’s Eve party until midnight, when the radio was obliged to stop broadcasting. A few minutes before the arrival of 1993, the last New Year’s greetings and clinking of glasses were heard on the frequency 92.7. Then, at midnight, silence and time descended over Nova 22.