Back on TLAX
Tlaxcala state TV network gets on track with common-concession conversion, pending return to state capital
These are better days for the Coordinación de Radio, Cine y Televisión de Tlaxcala, and nothing said that quite like Monday’s signing of an agreement between the state government and the IFT. The governor, Lorena Cuéllar Cisneros, was there; so too were the heads of the SPR, La Red México, Canal Once, and Radio IPN.
Unlike some broadcasters, Tlaxcala has gotten all the parts together from its shattered state network and is going to be able to put them back together. On June 26, according to a source consulted by En Frecuencia, the IFT Pleno approved the pending common-concession conversion for Tlaxcala Televisión. Using the Apizaco transmitter, recently renamed XHTLAX-TDT, as the base concession, the move’s primary purpose is to permit the reauthorization of the former XHTLX-TDT in Tlaxcala de Xicohténcatl as a shadow. That application is now pending, but transmitter tests have also been reported separately.
In radio, the controversial lease of XHTLAX-FM, which got the president to denounce it, has ended (early!), and Radio Altiplano is once more on the air providing public radio broadcasting to much of the state. Even Tlaxcala’s state-owned AM is getting attention.
What a Difference a Few Months Makes
CORACYT’s radio and television apparatus has taken a beating in the last few years. En Frecuencia reported in November 2021 that it had lost TV concessions due to failure to renew. The IFT offered a lifeline by putting the concessions in the 2022 PABF advance window, only for the state to bafflingly not file for all of them. That left the IPN as the only applicant for and winner of XHCPFL-TDT 23 in the state capital.
Then there was the Heraldo Radio takeover of XHTLAX-FM in September 2023. Yes, this is a commercial concession, but it didn’t mean it was seen as a good idea. Nobody liked it. The one-year deal ended up lasting eight and a half months, terminating days after the federal election.
But the sound and picture have brightened considerably in recent weeks. In May, the IPN surrendered the concession it held for channel 23 in Tlaxcala — given the presence of Carlos Brito Lavalle at yesterday’s event and remarks made by CORACYT leader Angélica Domínguez Hernández, no coincidence. The June 26 common-concession conversion puts CORACYT on a glide path to having all five television transmitters in operation for the first time since March, when viewers lost XHTLX, and in good legal standing for the first time in years.
The state legislature is committing 100 million pesos to a restructuring of CORACYT, which includes a wave of new equipment. Even XETT, the state AM radio station, is benefiting: this week, CORACYT will take delivery of the first new transmitter for the station in 30 years.
