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Miami’s longtime conservative, Spanish-language talk radio station will shutter on Friday, only three years after a controversial takeover by a George Soros-linked group.
Radio Mambí, long connected to Miami’s Cuban exile community and known for its anti-communist programming, was purchased — along with other Spanish-language stations — by the Soros-linked group in 2022. At the time, many conservatives, especially right-leaning Hispanics, called it an effort by the left to control the information reaching Spanish-speaking voters. The station is now signing off for good, citing “financial challenges.”
“For four decades, Radio Mambí has been a gathering place for South Florida and those devoted to the ideal of a free Cuba. Often the market leader in Spanish-language talk, our microphones welcomed presidents, governors, mayors, dissidents and political prisoners, cultural icons, and community voices. We stood with Miami through hurricanes and history. Much like our beautiful city, Radio Mambi, its audience, and the media industry are rapidly evolving, presenting financial challenges for many in the marketplace,” Radio Mambí General Manager Mike Sena told Fox News Digital.
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“Sadly, as of 11:59 p.m. on December 12, we will close our live news/talk chapter and will forge on to new frontiers,” he continued. “We are proud of this legacy and deeply grateful to the colleagues, listeners and advertisers who made it possible.”
Radio Mambí will play music and archived programming, remaining the home of the Miami Heat and the Miami Marlins in Spanish-language radio for the “foreseeable future.”
All live programming staff at Radio Mambí will depart. A minimal team, including one sales representative and a board operator, will remain to honor commitments to current advertisers and the station’s sports broadcast partners.
Conservative host Lourdes Ubieta quit ahead of the 2022 sale, saying she would never accept a paycheck from anyone connected to Soros. She believes the station suddenly shuttering its talk radio operations is evidence she made the right decision.
“It took them less than three years to destroy these stations,” Ubieta told Fox News Digital.
“This was always the plan,” she continued. “To silence conservative voices and ultimately eliminate Mambí — an enduring symbol of anti-communist radio in Florida and around the world.”
The Soros-backed group in 2022 created Latino Media Network, a new network made up of multiple Hispanic radio stations, including Radio Mambí, and partially financed by Lakestar Finance, an investment group affiliated with Soros Fund Management.
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Stephanie Valencia, a former Obama White House staffer, serves as the group’s executive chair. Other board members include Al Cárdenas, who is married to “The View” co-host Ana Navarro, actress Eva Longoria and Jess Morales Rocketto, who worked on presidential campaigns for Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton.
“These women ran the stations into the ground, and now they are shutting them down for good,” Ubieta said.
Radio Mambí had a streak of 40 years of uninterrupted transmission after being founded in 1985. When asked if politics played a role in the decision, a Latino Media Network spokesperson pointed Fox News Digital to a “rapidly evolving media and demographic landscape.”
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NewsBusters analyst Jorge Bonilla, who hosts a conservative talk show on Radio Libre, a competitor to Radio Mambí, has long predicted the demise of the iconic Miami-based station.
“The death of Radio Mambí was always going to be the endgame once the anti-communist bastion fell into the hands of the Soros-backed Latino Media Network. This is one of those times where I hate being right,” Bonilla told Fox News Digital.
“But the battle continues,” he continued. “Notwithstanding the loss of Mambí, the left has forever lost monopoly power over the dissemination of Spanish-language news and information in the United States.”
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