The first media outlets in Itapecuru

Abstract

The first media outlets in Itapecuru

The inauguration of electricity in Itapecuru, at the end of 1948, triggered a marked change in the daily life of the population, especially in the field of entertainment and social communication.

Mayor Miguel Ficane was responsible for introducing electricity into the city, an important tool aimed at providing better conditions for comfort and leisure to the community.

The inauguration of the company Marília

From the municipal manager, as a public man of vision, the initiative to rally efforts to transform the landscape of the land that gave him a popular mandate, due to the presence of electricity in the city.

In order for these technological innovations to be introduced in the city, Miguel Ficane created the Marília Company, through which the population would have modern entertainment and social communication equipment, including a movie projector and a loudspeaker service.

The Cine Marília

Regarding the cinema, as an instrument of entertainment, the vast majority of the community did not know about it. It was, therefore, an auspicious novelty, which would serve to fill the idle nights of Itapecuru and neighboring cities.

With a mixture of anxiety and curiosity, the population was present on the night of March 5, 1950, at the ceremony in which the company Marília Ltda was festively and solemnly inaugurated, aimed at providing the city with equipment that would make it more cheerful and relaxed.

The Marília cinema, so called, started to operate temporarily in the residence of the merchant Wady Ficane, brother of Mayor Miguel and established on Rua do Egito. The space reserved for the projection of films was a long balcony, where spectators, seated in common chairs, huddled together to see the exhibition of cinematographic works, almost all produced in the United States. The movie projector was placed in a prominent place, like a pedestal, at the end of the porch.

The films were shown four times a week, always at night, around 8 pm. On Sundays, the vespers took place at 16:00. 18-millimeter films were shown by the renowned American companies Metro Gold Mayer and Warner Bros.

A classic of American cinema, “Sergeant York”, starring artist Gary Cooper, opened Cine Marília. The population attended in force. Tickets were sold at affordable prices. Curiosity was so great that many people, for lack of accommodation, sat on the floor. The cinematographic equipment was under the responsibility of the young José Domingues and Nonato Araújo, who received special training to handle them.

After a few months, Cine Marília started to function in its own space, located on Avenida Gomes de Sousa, a building built to receive two types of audience: for those with more purchasing power, more or less comfortable wooden chairs were reserved. For lower-income assistants, a less comfortable space was allotted, based on long, backless benches. A wall separated the two audiences.

The speakers

Regarding the loudspeaker service, it was not new in the city, which became aware of that social communication equipment at the initiative of the merchant Abdala Buzar, who, as promoter of the São Benedito festivities, hired A Voz Pindorama, from Coroatá, to liven up the camp around the church.

The loudspeaker service, named Voz Marília, went on the air at two times: from 10 am to 1 pm and from 5 pm to 9 pm. Throughout the program, led by announcers Renato Oliveira, José Metre and João Batista Nogueira, various news, city hall acts and information of interest to the community were broadcast.

A large part of the revenue from the loudspeaker service came from the broadcasting of commercial advertising and musical messages, which listeners paid to send to relatives and friends, especially when they changed their age and dedicated songs recorded on vinyl records by the artists who made music to them. success at the time, like Nelson Gonçalves, Orlando Silva, Gilberto Alves, Luiz Gonzaga, Ângela Maria, Marlene, Emilinha, Linda and Dircinha Batista and other renowned singers.

In the absence of a suitable place for the installation of Voz Marília, the equipment started to work in an improvised room in the residence of Mayor Ficane, on Rua do Sol.

In the wake of these technological innovations, which became a fad and gave the city a breath of modernity, two more loudspeaker services were installed years later in Itapecuru.

On April 29, 1950, therefore, a month after the inauguration of Empresa Marília Ltda, the merchant Abdala Buzar Netto, acquired and donated to the parish of Nossa Senhora das Dores an amplifier which he named Voz Paroquial São Benedito, to publicize catholic information and animate the festivities promoted by the church.

The amplifier's studio was located inside the church, on the premises of the sacristy. With two loudspeakers placed in the head office tower, the Voz Paroquial, so that it could be aired during the day, Abdala also bought a small generator to supply energy to the sound equipment.

The first speaker of Voz Paroquial was called A. da Costa, later replaced by Edmar Bezerra. To maintain it, the faithful collaborated with small amounts from the musical messages.

At the dawn of 1951, Professor João Rodrigues informed the population that another loudspeaker service would be installed in the city. For this, he founded the Radiophonic Organization Voz do Comércio, equipment purchased in São Paulo, Philips model, which worked with record players, microphones and four loudspeakers.

Days later, he announced the inauguration of Voz do Comércio, on March 9, 1951. The community became aware of the amplifier's arrival through an intense fireworks. The studio, set up in the owner's residence, in Praça Gomes de Sousa, where the speakers were also installed. To direct it, João Rodrigues summoned his son Antônio Olívio, a young and brilliant intellectual, who had the misfortune of dying prematurely.

Voz do Comércio and Voz Marília, as they belonged to militant politicians, also became party instruments. During election campaigns, they broadcast propaganda and messages from candidates and politicians.

The newspapers

João Rodrigues, in addition to being an emeritus professor and owner of an educational institution - the Rio Branco Institute, which educated several generations, provided relevant services to the municipality in the field of social communication. In the mid-1930s, in the mid-1930s, he also owed the pioneering gesture of founding a small newspaper, but valuable for its information about people and events in the city.

Entitled A Gazeta, it circulated with the inherent difficulties of the time. The newspaper was made by the typographic system.

The workshop was located on Rua do Egito. With the advent of the Estado Novo, which began to censor the press, difficulties arose for newspapers in the interior, highlighting the lack of paper and political persecution against those who did not pray in the booklet of the new holders of power. In order not to suffer unpleasantness and ill-will, João Rodrigues forced himself in 1937 to close the activities of A Gazeta.

The country's return to the democratic regime, made him take action again and with obstinate determination, he decided to found another newspaper, through which he would continue to defend his political ideas and his party principles, which materialized with the conquests of a mandate councilor and mayor, a position he held twice.

Indeed, in December 1946, the newspaper O Trabalhista took to the streets of the city, in honor of former president Getúlio Vargas, founder of the PTB, a party to which João Rodrigues joined and began to have an active participation in the political scene of his land. . Trabalhista, like A Gazeta, adopted a critical line with regard to municipal administrators. To the best of our knowledge, the last issue of the newspaper was published in early 1952.

When O Trabalhista appeared, the technological process used in the assembly of newspapers was still the same as at the time of A Gazeta: typography. A professional was responsible for doing everything, except for the texts, which were produced in manuscripts or on typewriters by amateur journalists.

The weekly Itapecuruense circulated with four pages. In exceptional cases, it reached six, with records of various news from the city, highlighting political issues, considering that the blood of partisanship ran in the veins of the owner.

The city only had a printed newspaper again in 1991, on the initiative of publicist Gonçalo Amador. The new communication vehicle, entitled Jornal de Itapecuru, hit the streets to make up for the absence of the newspaper O Trabalhista, which ceased to circulate in 1952, when Professor João Rodrigues, its director, was no longer able to maintain it. , given the high costs of graphic material.

Jornal de Itapecuru, in order not to face problems identical to those of O Trabalhista, led its owner to print it in São Luis, using the services of private printers. Printed in polychrome, edited monthly, in a size equal to those circulating throughout the country and with a number of pages that varied according to the news and advertising. Jornal de Itapecuru specializes in publishing information and news from the city and surrounding municipalities.

The television

In the area of ​​social communication, the population of Itapecuru would once again have days of contentment and excitement, in April 1969, on the initiative of the then mayor João Rodrigues.

Authorized by the City Council, the city government installed a television set in Praça Gomes de Sousa, so that the community that did not have sufficient purchasing power could watch the programs broadcast by TV Difusora, belonging to the Bacelar group.

On a pedestal, built and installed in the city's main square, a television operated from 7 pm to 10 pm and was activated by a municipal server.

When the television went on the air, the viewers positioned themselves in front of the pedestal and stayed there until the time the municipal server turned it off. Soap operas were the favorite programs of the population, who arrived at the square early to occupy the best seats.

From the 1970s, the TV set left Praça Gomes de Sousa, due to the mass production of televisions, which made possible the pecuniary access to that powerful consumer good, facilitated by the installation of stations generating or repeating the images transmitted by television. to all Brazilian cities, on behalf of Embratel.