Born Again in La Paz

After nearly two years of apparent silence, former Christian station to return with W Radio

For any other station, it might be news I hold for a bullet point in the Cuaderno on Friday. W Radio is coming to La Paz.

Then I realized it’s coming to… 101.5!?

For one, that’s XHCSAP-FM. A social station. And not just any social station. A Christian station owned by a concessionaire tied to the Barra Nacional de Abogados Cristianos. About which I’ve written two entire articles.

Let’s summarize them. The concessionaire is Voz de Transformación, A.C. It apparently went out and sought Christian churches in its first three station areas — La Paz, San Felipe BC, and Chilpancingo — to run the radio station concessions it held. In early 2020, I wrote about this process after a reader happened to go to the church service of the Centro Familiar Cristiano, which was BANAC’s chosen operator in La Paz, and heard a sermon delivered by pastor Moisés Mireles Carrillo about being called to run the station.

“We’re Putting It In Your Hands”

XHCSAP-FM went on the air as Radio Bless on September 8, 2020.

Say Yes to the Bless

Surprisingly, it lasted just thirteen months and change. The last program, per Facebook, aired on October 12, 2021. No reason was given for the closure.

The other BANAC stations on air are operating normally. XHCSBI-FM is still Radio Restauración, which was a pirate before taking over the frequency as a legal operator. XHCSAO-FM has never been tracked down.

A First

XHCSAP thus becomes the first Christian social radio station to eventually wind up with a secular format in Mexico. (One or two of the time-buy Christian AMs in the north have gone back to regular programming, as famously did XEL after the IFT denied ESNE’s bid to buy the station outright.)

We don’t know very much about who is behind the project. They obviously will have had some contact with BANAC, but Voz de Transformación will be the concessionaire now and forever because social station concessions cannot be transferred. BANAC, meanwhile, has some new stations to build in Chiapas.

Radio Bless volunteers at a first anniversary event on September 7, 2021. The station shut down a little over a month later.

If the station has been off air, it would make sense. In January, the IFT authorized a site change to a transmitter facility on Blvd. Constituyentes de 1975, Sector Inalapa. There is no tower at this site as of 2019, though the area is home to multiple car dealerships (the closest being Volkswagen Transmar) and a Grupo Modelo warehouse.