It transmits propaganda in Spanish to Cuba and its broadcasts can also be heard and viewed worldwide through their website and on shortwave radio frequencies.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, the budget for all U.S.-government-run foreign broadcasters, with the exception of Radio Martí, was sharply reduced.
[3] Two hours of Radio Martí's news programs are carried each night, 10:00 PM to midnight local time, by Miami's WSUA (Caracol 1260 AM).
[clarification needed] As with Radio Free Europe during the Cold War, there is no way to judge the station's true audience through the usual listener surveys.
However, after the fall of the communist Soviet satellite governments of Eastern Europe in 1989 and of the Soviet Union itself at the end of 1991, a Hoover Institution conference reviewing reports from citizens in newly independent Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and other countries tended to substantiate the effectiveness of RFE and U.S. Voice of America broadcasts both in providing information and bolstering pro-liberal democracy movements within those countries, despite attempts at electronic jamming and counter-propaganda.
Senator Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) and U.S. House of Representatives member Betty McCollum introduced the Stop Wasting Taxpayer Money on Cuba Broadcasting Act to shut the stations down.
It began broadcasting on March 27, 1990, beaming daily programs in Spanish via a transmitter affixed to an aerostat balloon – nicknamed "Fat Albert" by people in the area – tethered 10,000 feet (3,048 m) above Cudjoe Key, Florida.
[7] Weather affected the broadcasts; "Fat Albert" sometimes was hauled down because of high winds, once broke loose and drifted into the Everglades in 1991, and was destroyed by Hurricane Dennis in 2005.
After the aerostat's destruction, TV Martí in October 2006 began to use fixed-wing aircraft to transmit its signals, first a military C-130 Hercules which proved too expensive to operate, and then a Gulfstream twin engine airplane flying a figure-eight pattern off Key West, Florida.
[8] The first TV Martí broadcasts took place in the very early morning hours to avoid interference with Cuban domestic television programming.
The director emphasized that this constant U.S. attack is in violation of ITU regulations, which stipulate that radio transmissions within commercial broadcasting on medium wave, FM, or television must be conceived of as a good quality national service within the limits of the country concerned.
In addition, the program indicates that Massachusetts Congressman William Delahunt has also promised to hold hearings on TV Martí.
[5] In May 2018 Martí broadcast video segments attacking George Soros as a "multimillionaire Jew of Hungarian origin" threatening Latin American democracy.