The Hidalgo Compromise
The IFT splits the baby with something for everyone but everything for no one
Call it the Hidalgo Compromise. The March 20 double ruling on pending public radio station applications in Hidalgo gave everyone something. Radio y Televisión de Hidalgo got some of its dignity back. The Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo got a seventh FM outlet. And listeners are getting a radio station back or, in some areas, two of them.
What the IFT did was award XHCPDX-FM 96.5C in Ixmiquilpan to the state first. It then found that because Huichapan was already in the 92-kilometer-radius statutory coverage area, awarding XHCPDW-FM 103.7A to the state was improper because it would have created a duplication of service, so the UAEH was the only qualified applicant. This does strike a blow to the local programming the old XHHUI-FM offered, but the UAEH can pick up that slack with ease based on its experience running local stations elsewhere in the state.
The state government is wasting no time. They have programming ready to go, according to radio director Andrés Torres Aguirre, though he is promising that despite the name, the station, programming, and personnel will be new.
The IFT’s plea to build shadows, not separate stations, should come to the state government as a bright idea. That 92-kilometer radius includes Actopan (which was in the Longley-Rice contour of XHD), Pachuca, Tula de Allende, and other cities in central and western Hidalgo. Those three cities headlined the permanent losses from the concession crisis. The other two, San Bartolo Tutotepec and Tepeapulco, are too far away.
The idea of painting more of the green circle pink is one that will call like a siren to state leaders. But doing so might force some very tough decisions out of RTVH leadership.
What a Boost
The old XHD and the new XHCPDX are not like most public radio stations. For one, this area got an FM outlet incredibly early, especially for a not-exactly-urbanized part of the country. It went on the air in 1962 and was formalized on March 10, 1965. XEZG-AM 1390 was added to the pool in 1975 (probably because an AM was probably very necessary to reach many listeners in that era). Commercial XEQH-AM did not come on air here until 1985. XHD and XEZG became state-owned in 1995 when the government absorbed the agency that ran the outlets, Patrimonio Indígena del Valle de Mezquital y la Huasteca Hidalguense.
While XHD’s effective radiated power as of the last available information was still just 5 kW, the location of the transmitter on Cerro Juárez made it a Class C, an uncommon sight in public radio. Despite this, the terrain creates a lot of blockages. The signal does not go into the mountanous northern part of the state. It is shielded from Actopan, Tula de Allende, Pachuca, Tecozautla, Zimapán, Zacualtipán, Huasca de Ocampo, and Tizayuca, among cities just in Hidalgo — and those are just the in-state population centers you’d find in a list of radio stations.
Notably, the first three had stations lost in the concession crisis. Aside from San Bartolo Tutotepec and Tepeapulco, both of which are just too far east, correct booster building would on paper restore a lot of lost coverage. Tula de Allende had no public radio fallback, whereas Actopan and Pachuca did. Huichapan will get that fallback from the UAEH station. And Pachuca, as a state capital, is of outsized importance and symbolic value for a state network to reach.
Bella Airosa Radio Mezquital–Actopan–Huichapan, La Voz de los Atlantes?
The problem is that doing so at anything resembling a reasonable level of local service would probably weigh down Radio Mezquital. Remember, a booster cannot originate programming, so all that has to go on the XHCPDX schedule with all the Mezquital and statewide programming. And that might change how listeners view Radio Mezquital.
This station was a legitimate stalwart in its community, not another station seen as the little-listened government outlet, and people have missed it for the last 16 months. After En Frecuencia’s story yesterday, some outlets picked it up (without direct credit, unfortunately). I was struck by the comments and shares on Exo Noticias Hidalgo’s post. Pretty much universally, it was hailed as “excellent news” and a “blessing” for a station that was “already missed” and “should never have left the air”. People wanted to hear the voices of Felipe Tellez and other specific announcers on their radios again. They recalled listening when they were children. One person cynically claimed it was a plot to earn votes in the coming election — which is so utterly wrong it deserves a rebuke — while another expressed hope that when driving through Ixmiquilpan they wouldn’t have to hear “nothing but Masses and psalms”.
Imagine that station, now with local programs for Tula de Allende and Pachuca and Actopan and Huichapan. These communities deserve local service — most pressingly Tula, and someone in RTVH will look at Pachuca longingly. But is that station still Radio Mezquital? A station with which people have identified for decades? A station people clamored to return?
