Radio in Mexico is a mass medium with 98 percent national penetration and a wider diversity of owners and programming than on television. In a model similar to that of radio in the United States, Mexican radio in its history has been largely commercial, but with a strong state presence and a rising number of noncommercial stations in the 2000s and early 2010s. In August 2015, there were 1,999 legal radio stations, almost 75 percent of them on the FM band.IFT Distribution of Stations: August 2015
History
The 1920s: Pioneers and establishment
Radio was not invented in Mexico, declares PhD Elizabeth Rodríguez Montiel.d 000 El Final como El Inicio. A la Dra. Elizabeth: Hay que Escucharla. Invitada: Elizabeth Rodríguez Montiel. outlineradio.com The first transmission of the First Radio Station in Mexico was on October 9, 1921, in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.Jaime Kurt. Nominales X. La Fecha de Nacimiento del Radio en México: 9 de octubre de 1921. ISBN 9798759764533 The Electrical Engineer Constantino de Tarnava who previously had made experimental transmissions since 1919 made the first Broadcast service in Mexico under the call sign TND. He himself announced this indicative in order to honor the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Tarnava Notre Dame got in 1929 the call signs XEH and this radio station operates until today (2021).Ibidem.
Besides this fact, the development of Mexican radio would take place simultaneously in various cities around the country, as opposed to the rather centralized, Mexico City-based development of television. One of the first radio transmissions (not Broadcast Service but radio telephone and radiotelegraph stations)Jaime Kurt. Nominales X. Op.Cit. it seems to be taken in 1921 as well. This as part of celebrations of the centennial of the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba, which formalized Mexican independence. On September 27, 1921, during the Centennial International Commercial Exposition in Mexico City, a small radio station (telephone station) was set up by the government and run by Agustín Flores, an inspector in the General Directorate of Telegraphy. That same night, the Gómez Fernández brothers mounted their first radio transmissions, also in Mexico City; their station, with 20 watts power, would operate until January 1922, with programs of one hour on Saturday and Sunday.Fernando Mejía Barquera, "Historia mínima de la radio en México (1920–1996)", 1996.
As written before, Constantino de Tárnava, a ham radio operator in Monterrey, Nuevo León, began in October 9, 1921, regular transmissions of a station he called TND (Tárnava Notre Dame); de Tárnava would later own XEH-AM, one of Nuevo León's first licensed radio stations. The next year, radio stations would begin operations in Mexico City, Pachuca, Cuernavaca, Guadalajara, Morelia, San Luis Potosí, Chihuahua, Chihuahua, and Ciudad Juárez. Also in 1922, the National Radio League (Liga Nacional de Radio), the first radio association in Mexico, was formed.
On May 8, 1923, the station "El Universal/La Casa del Radio" (later CYL) came to air in Mexico City with 50 watts of power. The station was co-owned by the El Universal newspaper and Raúl Azcárraga, owner of the La Casa del Radio chain of radio stores. Andrés Segovia and Manuel Ponce were among the luminaries present at the station's formal inauguration that evening. That September, the station would increase its power to 500 watts; it would leave the air in 1928.
On September 15, the "El Buen Tono" cigarette company began the operation of its own station. This station would receive the CYB callsign after Mexico was assigned a range of international callsigns in 1924, and upon the switch of Mexico's callsign assignments to "X" in 1929, it would become XEB, the oldest Mexican radio station still in operation today. 1924 also saw the launch of radio stations by the Excélsior newspaper (CYX) and the Secretariat of Public Education (CZE, later XFX). The latter station, on 560 kHz, would operate until 1929, and the SEP would not operate another radio station until the 1960s.
The first communications law, the Electric Communications Law, was promulgated in 1926 by President Plutarco Elías Calles. Article 12 of the law provided that radio programming "should not harm the security of the State" or "the established government".
In 1929, callsigns were reassigned again. Mexico received the range XAA to XPZ; callsigns beginning in XE would be used for broadcasting. In the 1940s, the XH callsign series would be used for new FM and TV stations, though certain stations of both types that were co-owned with existing AM stations were allowed to use XE calls (such as XEWV-FM in Mexicali or XET-TV in Monterrey).
Early radio stations Location Start Owner TND (later: CYO, CYH, XEH) Monterrey 1921 Constantino de Tárnava CYL Mexico City 1923 Raúl Azcárraga Vidaurreta (El Universal) CYB (later: XEB) Mexico City 1923 José J. Reynosa CYF (later: XEF) Oaxaca 1923 Federico Zonilla CYY (later: XEY) Mérida 1923 Socialist Party CZF (later: XFF) Chihuahua 1923 State of Chihuahua CYX (later: XEX) Mexico City 1924 El Excélsior CZE (later: XFX) Mexico City 1924 Ministry of Public Education CYS (later: XEN) Mexico City 1925 General Electric Co. XEW Mexico City 1930 Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta XEFO Mexico City 1930 Partido Nacional Revolucionario
1930s: Consolidation of Mexican radio The 1930s saw the development of many new radio stations in Mexico. XEN (then on 710 kHz), Radio Mundial, provided the Mexico City area with the world's first all-news radio station in 1930. But the most important new radio station in 1930 was XEW 900, owned by Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta. Known as the "Voice of Latin America", XEW marked the changing of a guard in Mexican radio development and the beginning of its consolidation as a viable business. It specialized in developing daily programming that attracted viewers, and thus advertisers. Azcárraga's empire grew with the sign-on of XEQ in 1938.
The National Revolutionary Party, predecessor to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, launched station XEFO (originally known as "XE-PNR") 940 kHz in Mexico City on January 1, 1931. The station served as a method of disseminating party ideology and propaganda and was the primary news and propaganda source for the party during the 1934 presidential elections that brought Lázaro Cárdenas into power.Enrique E. Sánchez Ruiz, "Orígenes de la radiodifusión en México". Guadalajara: ITESO, 1984 The station was sold in 1941 and was succeeded by two separate outlets: XEQR on 1030, owned by Francisco Aguirre Jiménez, and XERCN 1110, owned by Rafael Cutberto Navarro and his Radio Cadena Nacional.
In 1931, the regime of permits for broadcast stations was changed to one where the government awarded concessions to use and operate stations on the radio spectrum, considered a public good ultimately owned by the state. Concessions awarded to stations were valid for up to 50 years. Likewise, in 1933, the government established a limit of 10 percent of broadcast time dedicated to commercial announcements, as well as the ability for the government to broadcast messages over commercial radio stations.
In 1937, this latter feature of Mexican radio would produce La Hora Nacional, one of the world's oldest continuously-aired radio programs, which is broadcast at 10 pm Sunday nights on all Mexican radio stations. La Hora Nacional was produced by the new Autonomous Dependency for Press and Publicity (DAPP), which built station XEDP on AM and shortwave counterpart XEXA but disappeared in 1939 with its stations to languish with little government support until the early 1940s. In 1969, the government set a quota of 12.5 percent of the airtime of all broadcast stations to be allotted for its uses.
In 1937, the Mexican Association of Radio Broadcasters was formed as the first industry association; soon renamed to the Mexican Association of Commercial Radio Broadcasters (AMERC, Asociación Mexicana de Radiodifusoras Comerciales), it initially consisted of 20 radio stations, half of them in Mexico City.
The 1930s also saw the development of the first border blasters, stations that took advantage of Mexico's higher power limits and looser regulatory requirements for AM radio stations and boomed their signals toward the United States, often with paid preaching programs. The original border blaster, John Brinkley's XER in Villa Acuña, Coahuila, was replaced with XERA in 1935. XERA broadcast at 500 kilowatts and operated until 1939, when it was shut down amidst a treaty with the United States.History of XERF Also in the decade, the first university broadcasters came into operation: XEUN, the station of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and XEXQ, operated by the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí.
1940s: Networking 1940 saw a further pioneering effort in radio. Station XEQK in Mexico City, which had struggled since signing on in 1938, began transmitting the time, every minute on the minute, interspersed with short commercial announcements. The transmissions were enough of a success, both in terms of audience and advertising money, that the station dropped its other programs in 1942. "La QK", as it was popularly known, quickly became renowned for its distinctive "Hora Exacta" time format; it would be sold to IMER in 1983, and the format would remain on the air until 2003.
In 1941, the foundation of Radio Programas de México, half-controlled by the Azcárraga family and Clemente Serna Martínez, marked the beginning of a networking frenzy in Mexico. Stations in interior Mexico not only received access to better programming produced in Mexico City and recorded on vinyl and magnetic tape but also to national advertisers. Within a decade, RPM had 92 affiliates, forming a network that at its height included more than half of the country's radio stations.Arturo Merayo Pérez, La radio en Iberoamérica: evolución, diagnóstico, prospectiva. Comunicación Social, 2007: 246. Regional and semi-national networks included Radiodifusoras Asociadas, S.A. (RASA), which mostly had stations in the Bajío region, and Radio Central Radiofónica, with its affiliate portfolio located in central Mexico.
Also in 1941, the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Radiodifusión, or CIR, was founded as a chamber of commerce for the radio industry. In the early 1970s, it expanded its focus to include television and changed its name to the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de Radio y Televisión (CIRT).
In 1947, XERF-AM was founded in Villa Acuña, which would begin a new generation of border blaster radio stations including XERB and XETRA in Tijuana, Baja California. While border blasters usually programmed in English, they had to meet the requirements of their Mexican concessions, including broadcast of La Hora Nacional and the Mexican national anthem. That same year, the government renewed its radio efforts with the launch of XEX 730 in Mexico City, a 500,000-watt radio station which used the equipment of the former XERA in Villa Acuña and was intended as a national-level radio station.
1950s: Recorded music, the beginnings of FM and the expansion of AM The 1950s saw development on all frequencies. While the number of stations on the whole grew from 201 in 1951 to 332 in 1959, almost all on AM, the 1950s were a decade where Mexico began its forays into television and FM radio. The first television station in Mexico, XHTV in Mexico City, signed on August 31, 1950; two years later, the capital city saw the birth of the nation's first FM radio station, XHFM. XHFM, known as "Radio Joya", would close in 1957 after its studios were severely damaged in an earthquake. However, FM stations were slowly beginning to appear across the country: XEOY-FM and XERPM-FM in Mexico City and XET-FM in Monterrey were all on air by the end of the decade, and there would be 49 FM stations across the country for 1969.