2022 Gets Cooking
Operator and format changes on the docket in several cities already
New Year’s Day — and the Monday that follows it — will bring changes in some Mexican broadcasting markets this year.
PSN Comes to Tijuana TV
One of Tijuana’s most politically connected broadcasters has struck a deal to get on the city’s broadcast TV dial.
PSN (Primer Sistema de Noticias), the media empire of former Baja California governor Jaime Bonilla Valdez, announced on December 24 that it would start programming XHBJ-TDT 45 today.
The news was also dropped into, of all things, a press conference by the municipal government in Ensenada, where the mayor (Armando Ayala) once worked for PSN. In that city, PSN did once program XHENB-TV 29, an analog station that never made the leap to digital.
New Visión for Acapulco
A local group known as Grupo Radio Visión is taking over operation of the Radiorama (Pergom) stations in Acapulco, and all four are getting new formats.
Three are from Radiópolis: Ke Buena on XHPA-FM 93.7, W Radio on XHNS-FM 96.9, and Los 40 on XHCI-FM 104.7.
Imagen Radio will also come to Acapulco on XHKOK-FM 88.9, which was a romantic station.
XHSAW Goes Bye-Bye
XHSAW-TDT in Sabinas Hidalgo/Monterrey, Nuevo León, also let its concession lapse on December 31.
Multimedios had been involved in a lawsuit about the renewal for this station in 2019 and 2020. No verdict was ever rendered, and it was bundled out to the new Third District Court in telecom (162/2021).
Tampico’s 10 Puts Itself Back Together
If you like reading long Twitter threads, then this one’s for you. It’s from Tampicosos, which follows the local TV scene in Tampico, and it’s about what is going on at XHFW-TDT, which in 2021 got leased out and then lost the lease deal after nine months.
The short of it: the Flores family’s preparing to relaunch XHFW full-on with local programming. The City Channel 10.1 seems to be preparing for a move back to the non-channel-number name and is looking for another place to hang its program hat (Tampicosos hints it might be Multimedios).
One local program has already started, a children’s show debuting on XHFW’s air:
Veracruz: New Regime
Máxima FM is officially the new format on XHIL-FM 88.5 Veracruz Puerto, which was sold to Radio S.A. at the end of November.
XHCS-FM 103.7 is still airing romantic music and has adopted the name “Música con Amor”.
In news not related to new radio formats, the IFT dropped the continuity ball. Even though it made a special filing window to fix continuity gaps, apparently the IFT failed to provide timely official notification of the new concession to Radiotelevisión de Veracruz, so it shut down its Las Lajas TV transmitter to start the new year. No other service in a similar situation seems to be doing this. As a note, the IFT does not return from its holiday break until January 6.
Mérida’s Wow Goes MIA
One station to watch for a format change is XHMIA-FM 89.3 in Mérida. “Wow” appears to be on its way out, and new generic IDs are in use. The newscast on the station also bid farewell.
