RAC1 is enjoying a sweet moment, having chained together three waves of the EGM where it has surpassed one million listeners, but this Monday it also wanted to look back and raise a symbolic toast to two of the architects of the station, who died in recent months. These are two of the co-founders of Grupo Godó's radio station, Carles Vilarrubí and Eugeni Sallent, the latter of whom was also its first director. Thus, the Tots Som 1 award – the station's slogan and which previously decided the audience – changes its modality this year to present this posthumous recognition.

A discreet man, generous with talent, and always kind, Eugeni Sallent was the executive who led the birth and growth of RAC1 from the engine room of management, propelling it to the forefront of Catalan-language radio. The station confirmed his death on Tuesday, at the age of 63, from cancer. His resume also includes a stint as director of TV3 during the turbulent years following the 2010 financial crisis. Born in Sabadell in 1962, Eugeni Sallent i Garriga was the son of the founder of Educa, a company dedicated to educational games and puzzles. A computer scientist by training, he also completed a master's degree in business administration at EADA Business School, and this dual background allowed him to become an information systems consultant for the Generalitat's IT Center in the mid-1990s. From there, and remaining in the public sector, he was appointed manager of the Catalunya Ràdio group of stations, a position he held when the newly launched private station, RAC1 (and its sister station, RAC105), was launched by the Godó Group. It was a somewhat risky venture, as the station was launched without listeners and at the same time as another private initiative, Ona Catalana, which was said to have more powerful political backers. From his position as managing director, and largely thanks to recruiting disaffected talent from Catalunya Ràdio when the tripartite coalition came to power—such as Jordi Basté and Toni Clapés—he led RAC1 to become the most listened-to radio station in the country, a position it still holds. In 2007, his achievements were recognized with the National Communication Award. And in 2010, he received the Quim Regàs Journalism Award in recognition of his career. In 2012, however, he returned to the public sphere, this time to head TV3. He did so without a single dissenting vote from the public broadcaster's governing board: the members nominated by Junts and the PP voted in favor, while the two board members appointed by the Socialists abstained. He replaced Mònica Terribas, and his role, despite being the director of the station, again focused more on management than content: it was the period of the great economic downturn, and the then-president of the public broadcaster, Brauli Duart, was counting on him to try to weather the storm of having to watch Corpora Convergència cut its public funding and advertising revenue plummet. However, the television station, which had achieved the top spot in 2010, managed to maintain its position as the most-watched in the country. Sallent left the post in 2016, dissatisfied with what he perceived as the blatant politicization of the director and news director positions, both at TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, following the change of government in the Generalitat that brought Esquerra to power. Under the agreement between Convergència and the Republicans, the former party was awarded control of TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio's news programs, while ERC retained the symmetrical positions, in a system known internally as "the zipper." Sallent left quietly, but years later, in the book Objective TV3He explained: "I'd had enough. And I didn't like the political circumstances at the time. I'm not going to say anything politically incorrect, because I'll get a lot of flak for it, but I didn't agree with the way the parties were handing out positions. It's very difficult to get ahead in that company if you try to do your job from a strictly professional perspective."

Yael Brusca (Sant Pol de Mar, 1993) is in a moment of impasse. After passing through RAC1 and RAC105, she awaits the start of a new television project on the 2Cat channel and is working on the production of a podcast for NationA chemistry graduate, she came to the media almost by chance, but has stayed out of curiosity and instinct.

This Monday marks the start of the radio season, and Catalonia's two main stations, Catalunya Ràdio and RAC1, are approaching it in very different ways. While the public radio station has shaken up its programming and is launching new programs, the Godó Group's radio station maintains the model that has given it leadership and allowed it to make history by surpassing the threshold of one million listeners.

This week, RAC1 celebrated its 25th anniversary and success. It celebrates at a sweet moment, having surpassed the psychological barrier of one million listeners in the latest wave of the EGM (General General Election). It is the leading radio station in Catalonia, the fourth in the entire country, with a diverse and intergenerational audience. The sheer volume of this success is all the more remarkable because, in these 25 years, we have experienced the explosion of the internet and digital media, and the news and entertainment offerings have multiplied. And not only have they multiplied, they have also globalized, which has been a problem—another—for Catalan-language media. But RAC1 has maintained its privileged position thanks to the talent of its professionals, the accuracy of its programmers, and a virtue that is easier to proclaim than to exercise: identification with a very broad stratum of listeners. The station's great merit is having found the right tone, something that isn't listed in any manual, something that money can't buy. A fresh and playful tone, compatible with my journalistic vocation and the ambition to be present in those moments when turning on the radio is a necessary ritual. I was fortunate enough to be part of it with a program –Absolute minority– which made me enjoy myself like never before. And I feel very satisfied.

Catalan radio audiences They are extraordinary. According to the General Study of Media published yesterday, the fourth most-listened-to radio station (the focus is Spain) is RAC1, with one million listeners, more than Radio Nacional in all of Spain, and the seventh is Catalunya Ràdio, with 777,000. To understand the strength of Catalan-language radio in Catalonia, these figures can help: the two Basque channels combined make up 270,000 listeners, Canal Sur reaches 239,000, and Radio Galega 118,000. Anyone who wants to reach Catalan society must go through Catalan channels.

A symbolic record-breaking event for Catalan-language radio. After several EGMs in which RAC1 was close to reaching a million listeners, it has finally broken through this psychological barrier, albeit by a hair: 1,001,000 followers, representing 137,000 more than in April of last year. No other station in the country had ever achieved this seven-figure mark. It has achieved this, moreover, without being detrimental to its direct rival, Catalunya Ràdio, which also improved its results compared to a year earlier, going from 626,000 to 716,000 listeners, thus matching its best historical figure from the first wave of 2019. SER, meanwhile, is third from a distance, with 386,000 listeners. The ranking continues with Cope (269,000), Onda Cero (137,000), and RNE (119,000).

A silver anniversary for the Ràdio Associació Awards, which celebrated their 25th edition with a list of winners that highlights the broadcasters' most socially responsible role and the projects that preserve the medium's memory, as its centenary draws to a close. The top awards went to Barça plays on RAC1 (award for excellence), the documentary Women of Radio, the Radio Sound Archive, the Women on the Air project, the veteran radio host Ricky Romero (famous for working with Pere Bernal on programs such as In my own way), DANA coverage by À Punt, Alzira Radio, Aldaia Radio, and Ricard Ustrell (in the category of best professional). The awards will be presented at a gala in the foyer of Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu on May 15th, at a party that is usually the main social gathering for Catalan-language radio and which this year will be hosted by Marta Romagosa and Antoni Clapés.

Joan Maria Pou (Barcelona 1974) is a journalist. Since 2000, he has been reporting on FC Barcelona matches for RAC1.

She lost her mother very early. "My mother died very young, at 26, when I was seven months old. Then we went to live with my grandmother in Sant Gervasi, until I was 12."

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