"¡Se las come a todas!", roughly "it beats them all", has been Radio Nova's slogan since 2009, and for a station broadcasting out of Trujillo, Peru, it doubles as a mission statement. The station has spent more than three decades chasing exactly that claim across the country's northern coast.
From Nova Stereo to a Regional Chain
The station signed on June 15, 1992, in Trujillo as Nova Stereo, founded by Augusto Franco, according to a history of the station. Riding the popularity of cumbia acts like Grupo 5, Armonía 10, and Caribeños de Guadalupe, the station expanded into Piura, Chimbote, and Chiclayo in 2006, each running its own local programming under the same brand. In 2009, Nova Stereo rebranded simply as Radio Nova, adopted a new logo, and kept the slogan that has defined it since. Franco led the station until his death in a traffic accident in December 2021, but the chain he built kept expanding into cities like Casma, Ica, Virú, and Huamachuco.
Broadcasting From Peru's Cumbia Golden Triangle
Trujillo sits inside what's often called the golden triangle of Peruvian cumbia, alongside Chiclayo and Piura, the stretch of Peru's north coast where norteña cumbia found its most solid commercial footing, according to a history of the genre's development. Trujillo cumbia itself traces back to roughly the 1970s as a distinct regional variant, and the north's grip on the sound only tightened through the 2000s, when Agua Marina and Armonía 10 filled discos before Grupo 5 and Los Hermanos Yaipén drove a second wave of popularity between 2007 and 2008. Radio Nova's programming, including a dedicated folk and cumbia norteña show called "El folcklore de mi tierra," sits squarely inside that regional identity rather than importing a national format from Lima.
Consistently the Region's Most-Listened Station
Radio Nova has ranked among the most-listened regional stations in northern Peru since 2002, a run that has outlasted multiple shifts in the cumbia scene it covers. That consistency extended into its newer markets too: Radio Nova Piura reached first place in its local market for the first time in October 2025, more than a decade after the station arrived there, showing the brand still gaining ground in cities it entered well after its Trujillo origins.
Tune In
For a station built entirely around the sound of Peru's cumbia heartland and still expanding after more than thirty years, Radio Nova is worth a stream on Radio Shuffle.