Cultural and Christian: Red Global Cultural de Televisión, A.C.

Christian television comes to Mexico on its first digital low-V

This story was originally published on the WTFDA Forums on August 29, 2019.

So, there’s a lot to the award of Mexico’s first honest-to-goodness digital low-VHF TV station. It’s a noteworthy award for DXers; once built, it will be the first e-skip target for TV here since 2015. However, this is a landmark award in another way.

We’ve talked a lot about religious radio this year, but now it’s time to take religious television seriously, because that’s what’s coming on the new XHCSBA-TDT 4.

This is the second time that Red Global Cultural de Televisión has filed an application for a TV station. It actually had its first attempt denied on March 9, 2018.

In 2017, the Organización de Radios Comunitarias de Occidente filed the first ever transparency request for a list of pending social broadcast station applications from the 2015 through 2017 PABFs. That landmark filing — which inspired the later transparency requests made by En Frecuencia for the 2018 PABF, all pending pre-LFTR permit filings, the public stations of 2015–17, and an update to said social list to include dates and proposed service — included this application.

At the time I published the list, I noted that Red Global Cultural de Televisión was likely tied to a Christian network called Expande TV. Well, it’s true.

The legal address for Red Global Cultural is Calle La Hacienda 4401-G, Col. Santiago Momoxpan, in San Pedro Cholula. This address is a building with several suites, all of them part of the same church and media conglomerate.

“Cultural Christian Television Network”

A job board area for Red Global Cultural, with this address, lists the website www.rgctv.com — currently a placeholder — and includes a description of the company:

RGCTV es un canal que presenta una nueva alternativa de ver televisión. Nuestra misión es hacer llegar a toda Iberoamérica y el mundo, una señal televisiva de excelencia y calidad, cuyos contenidos no solo puedan entretener, educar, enseñar y capacitar; sino transmitir valores que edifiquen a cada miembro de la familia, y les puedan ayudar en su diario caminar en la vida.

Estableciendo la Red de Televisión Cultural Cristiana en español más grande de América y del Mundo entero, en donde cada persona pueda tener acceso directo a una programación dinámica, activa, práctica y sencilla, que le ayude a enfrentar los retos que le impone la sociedad en la que convive; y que le permita descubrir, entender y desarrollar todos sus dones y talentos, para así alcanzar sus metas y propósito en la vida.

Nuestra visión es hacer llegar a cada miembro de la familia, programas que ayudan al desarrollo integral y que colaboran en la edificación en principios, ética, integridad, moral y valores, al mismo tiempo que entretienen de manera sana, y brindan capacitación y enseñanza.

Translated:

RGCTV is a channel that presents a new alternative in television. Our vision is to bring to Iberoamérica and the world, a quality television channel whose programs not only entertain, educate, teach and train, but also transmit values that edify the whole family and can help them in their daily lives.

Establishing the largest Cultural Christian Television Network in the Americas and the whole world, in which each person can have direct access to a dynamic, active, practical and simple program lineup that helps them to confront the challenges they face in the society in which we live and that allows them to discover, understand and develop all of their gifts and talents, in order to reach their goals and purpose in life.

Our vision is to bring to every member of the family programs that aid their comprehensive development and that help to edify them in principles, ethics, integrity, morals and values, while at the same time entertaining them in a healthy manner and providing training and teaching.

It appears that this is one of several “TV”-named ventures that are related; there’s also the Expande TV I had mentioned last year, which has its own placeholder site. There might also have been some name changes.

The rest of the tenants of La Hacienda 4401, as well as Red Global Cultural de Televisión and Expande, are ministries and programs associated with a church known as Amistad. Amistad Comunicaciones Editorial, for instance, is at 4401-A. It is a religious publisher that produces an online newspaper (América Nueva); several monthly publications for children; and religious books and DVDs. 4401-B is the Instituto Bíblico España, a training institute for pastors and churches certified by the Christ for the Nations Institute of Dallas, TX, which has four other campuses in Puebla, Córdoba (Veracruz), and Tuxtepec (Oaxaca). 4401-C is home to the Instituto Juárez-Lincoln, which despite its name is indeed a Christian school. Amistad also runs a foundation called Salvemos la Familia (Save the Family). The complex, built around an 18th-century hacienda, has 10 buildings, including an auditorium that can seat 5,000, as well as a bookstore and café.

They’re Not Alone

In the 2017 PABF, Red Cultural de Comunicaciones, A.C., filed for a community TV station in Villahermosa. This is another Christian channel, Sion TV. Radio Metro Misión Potosina in the 2018 PABF sought social TV stations in Chihuahua and Toluca. Arlene Jasmine Elsie Alvarado Cuéllar, who last year nabbed XHCSAC-FM 94.3 Mapastepec Chis., filed last year for a new TV station in Matamoros. Alvarado Cuéllar’s application is in a mutually exclusive group with an application from Claudia Méndez Villagómez, who is listed as one of the members of a Pentecostal church — and a ministro de culto, which should result in the denial of this application — called Impacto de Vida in its 2012 incorporation application with SEGOB.

The IFT Isn’t Wrong

We learned from the La Visión de Dios application that the IFT’s criteria are simple: don’t be a religious association and don’t be a ministro de culto or partly owned by one. (Though XHPBJZ and XHPEEF seem to have avoided this.) So the IFT is in the right to let this application move forward, and it beats out Instituto Michoacano de Radiodifusión in terms of filing order and also number of other stations filed for. (If you’re a serial filer, you actually may be at a disadvantage, according to the IFT’s criteria for resolving these MX groups.) It’s the first social TV station for Puebla and it will almost certainly offer something different from other stations in town. (It will also have a headache of a time getting viewers equipped to see it on low-VHF.) La Visión de Dios mostly attracted attention for its name, given that the IFT — and its predecessor — had already approved stations to quasi-religious groups in the past. However, this is a substantive leap, because never before has such an award been made of a television station.