When I was young and used to listen to The Mighty 690 and 91X and also when I worked at Z-90 in 1989, the only PSAs we had to play were tourism and Mexican history PSAs. They were often very well done and not at all weird sounding like a bad translation effort. Why did stations stop doing this practice?
The PSAs RTC has supplied over the years definitely seem to have changed from what people say they used to be in the past.
Some info you probably did not know about all this.
Articles 251–253 (Chapter III, Section I) of the LFTR is the current legislation around "State Time", which is 30 minutes a day for all broadcast stations. It requires that broadcast stations provide this air time for the broadcast of "educational, cultural, and social interest topics". Article 252 splits this into 15 minutes of spots (no less than 20 seconds) and 15 minutes of programs of five minutes or longer, called
capsulas (capsules). Article 253 adds the additional obligation to air the National Anthem at 6 a.m. and midnight. (Adjacent are Articles 254 and 255 which require broadcast stations to air public safety messages when necessary and
cadenas nacionales at the request of the Secretaría de Gobernación.)
SEGOB concentrates these functions in its Dirección General de Radio, Televisión y Cinematografía. RTC is Mexico's broadcast and film content regulator. It is RTC that produces
La Hora Nacional, circulates bulletins of
cadenas nacionales, manages most of the spot load, and so on. RTC runs DDIM (Digital Distribution of [Official] Information and Materials), which supplies all this to stations. Outside of these duties, it is perhaps more known to Mexicans as the rating agency for films and TV shows.
The longform programs currently on the air are
Radiósfera (UNAM); Ya Oissste (ISSSTE, the health system for federal employees, title is a play on Ya Oiste, "Have You Heard?");
Revista del Consumidor (Profeco, the consumer watchdog agency; there is also a print magazine of the same name, which is a Mexican Consumer Reports), which also has a "best-of" version.
In addition to "State Time", there's also "Fiscal Time" for commercial stations. This is an extra 18 minutes and is actually, as its name indicates, a tax! Not all ads come from the executive branch. Some come from the legislature (Chamber of Deputies and Senate); the legislature; and autonomous government agencies like the IFT and Banco de México (the country's central bank and mint). These are mostly scheduled in Tiempo Fiscal.
Outside of RTC's remit is everything electoral. The National Electoral Institute (INE) is the more formidable regulator in this area. It distributes and manages electoral advertising and has a monopoly on it. The INE maintains a beefy national verification infrastructure to track compliance with spot load requirements. There will be fines, rescheduling of missed spot impressions, and more. In fact, the INE sometimes is the first place to go for certain kinds of broadcast information.
Outside of elections, RTC manages 88 percent of the spot load and leaves the rest to the INE. During electoral periods, the INE takes control of the scheduling of all 30/48 minutes and restricts RTC campaigns to certain kinds of public health and civil defense/safety ones, to avoid material that can be considered propaganda. The time is allotted by party with a share for the INE, the TEPJF (electoral court), and their state counterparts. Electoral advertising except for institutional messages stops several days before an election, creating a quiet period.
Translating and reproducing PSAs is difficult for a few reasons, as someone who has listened to a fair number of originals and translations:
- It requires someone with intimate and up-to-date knowledge of Mexican current affairs, not just a good grasp of Spanish. The party ads in particular. The PRD ad says "we can't live off other facts". "Otros datos" is a direct reference to presidential statements.
- You can still get tripped up in language errors or typos introduced in the translation process. A PSA on climate change talked about "five grades" when grados means "degrees" in this context.
- Some of the ads are wordy. The legislative awards of various types are the worst.
- There are slogans and puns that do not translate. The Banco de México ad is about new banknotes. The slogan is "Revisar es efectivo" (Checking is Effective). The pun is that efectivo is short for dinero en efectivo—cash. In translation, some things have to be ditched.
- You don't have all the original resources in production. Some ads demand female voiceovers because of their content. Some of the party and electoral ads feature candidates or party leaders and thus require extra wording to reproduce.
- English speakers and place names like Tlaxcala, and sometimes names of people, do not generally mix. The guy who did all these for BCA gave us gems like "San Louie Potosi", "San Lázaro" said "San Luh-Zarro", and "Chichen Itza" that sounded much like "chicken pizza".
Notably, the only deliberate edit I saw BCA pull off in dozens of PSAs was removing a reference to Donald Trump from a political ad that ran in 2016 and obscuring it as "a certain presidential candidate". Presumably to avoid having to explain to irate sports radio listeners that they have absolutely no control over INE advertising.
