Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, with mass entertainment playing an important role in creating a national, unified culture. The ''
telenovela
A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar drama genres around the world include '' teleserye'' ...
s'' are very traditional in Mexico and are translated to many languages and seen all over the world with renowned names like Lucero,
Thalía
Ariadna Thalía Sodi Miranda (; born 26 August 1971), known mononymously as Thalía, is a Mexican singer and actress. Referred to as the " Queen of Latin Pop", she is considered one of the most successful and influential Mexican artists. Havin ...
,
Verónica Castro
Verónica Castro (), full name Verónica Judith Sáinz Castro (born 19 October 1952), is a Mexican actress, singer, producer, former model and presenter.
She started her career as a television actress, where she met comedian Manuel Valdés, fa ...
Leticia Calderón
Leticia Calderón (; born Carmen Leticia Calderón León on July 15, 1968) is a Mexican actress.
and
Victoria Ruffo
María Victoria Eugenia Guadalupe Martínez del Río Moreno-Ruffo (born May 31, 1962) is a Mexican actress notable for her roles in telenovelas.
Biography
1980s
Ruffo began her acting career in 1980, starring in supporting roles in teleno ...
.
Network television
There are three major television companies in Mexico that own the primary networks and broadcast covering all nation,
Televisa
Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content.
In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announce ...
,
TV Azteca
TV Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as some local operators. It owns two national ...
and
Imagen Television
''Imagen'' is a Spanish language monthly women's fashion magazine published in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Profile
''Imagen'' was founded in 1986. The magazine is printed monthly by Casiano Communications. The headquarters is in San Juan. It is Puer ...
. Televisa is also the largest producer of Spanish-language content in the world and also the world's largest Spanish-language media network. Media company
Grupo Imagen
Grupo Imagen is a Mexican media conglomerate, part of Grupo Empresarial Ángeles.
History
Grupo Imagen traces its roots to the foundation of XEDA-AM in June 1936. This station was acquired by José Luis Fernández Soto in 1962, and in the same y ...
is another national coverage television broadcaster in Mexico, that also owns the newspaper
Excélsior
''Excélsior'' is a daily newspaper in Mexico City. It is the second oldest paper in the city after '' El Universal'', printing its first issue on March 18, 1917.
History
''Excélsior'' was founded by Rafael Alducin and first published in Mexic ...
.
Grupo Multimedios
Grupo Multimedios is a Mexican media conglomerate with holdings in broadcast television, radio, publishing and entertainment.
The company is headquartered in Monterrey.
History
Multimedios was founded in 1940 when Jesús Dionisio González ac ...
is another media conglomerate with Spanish-language broadcasting in Mexico, Spain, and the United States.
Televisa owns the
Las Estrellas
Las Estrellas ("The Stars"; previously El Canal de las Estrellas, or "The Channel of the Stars") is one of the cornerstone networks of TelevisaUnivision, with affiliate stations all over Mexico, flagshipped at XEW-TDT in Mexico City. Many of the ...
Azteca 7
Azteca 7 (also called El Siete) is a Mexican network owned by TV Azteca, with more than 100 main transmitters all over Mexico.
Azteca 7 is available on all cable and satellite systems. A substantial portion of their purchased programming include ...
and
Azteca Uno
Azteca Uno (previously Azteca Trece), is a Mexican national broadcast television network owned by TV Azteca, with more than 100 transmitters across the country. Azteca Uno broadcasts on virtual channel 1. Azteca Uno programming is available in ...
networks.
There are also several other commercial networks with less than 75% national reach. Chief among these are Televisa's
NU9VE
Nueve (English: Nine) (stylized Nu9ve) is a Mexican free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The primary station and network namesake is Channel 9 of Mexico City (also known by its call sign XEQ-TDT), though the network has na ...
, which in some areas shares time with regional programming, and
Multimedios Televisión
Canal 6 (alternately known as Multimedios Televisión) is a network of Spanish language television stations primarily concentrated in northeastern Mexico and the southwestern United States. The system is part of Grupo Multimedios. The flagship sta ...
, which broadcasts mostly in northeastern Mexico.
Noncommercially,
Canal Once
Once (Eleven; formerly Once TV México and Canal Once) is a Mexican educational broadcast television network owned by National Polytechnic Institute. The network's flagship station is XEIPN-TDT channel 11 in Mexico City. It broadcasts across ...
operated by the
Instituto Politécnico Nacional
The National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico ( es, Instituto Politécnico Nacional de México; ), abbreviated IPN, is one of the largest public universities in Mexico with 171,581 students at the high school, undergraduate and postgraduate level ...
is the oldest educational television service in Latin America. The
Sistema Público de Radiodifusión del Estado Mexicano
The ''Sistema Público de Radiodifusión del Estado Mexicano'' (Mexican State Public Broadcasting System, abbreviated SPR) until 2014, is an independent Mexican government agency. Its mission is to support the development of public broadcasting ...
(SPR) operates a network of digital retransmitters which offer multiple public television stations, including
Canal 22
XEIMT-TDT, known as Canal 22, is a television station located in Mexico City. Broadcasting on channel 22, XEIMT is owned by Televisión Metropolitana, S.A. de C.V., and operated by the Secretariat of Culture. It is one of Mexico's principal pub ...
Ingenio TV Ingenio may refer to:
Portuguese
* Engenho, a word meaning "ingenious" or "mill".
Spanish "sugar mill"
*Ingenio, Las Palmas municipality in the eastern part of the island of Gran Canaria
*Valle de los Ingenios, also named Valley de los Ingenios o ...
and its own
Canal Catorce
''Canal Catorce'' (Channel 14, formerly known as ''Una Voz con Todos'') is a national public television network of Mexico, operated by the Sistema Público de Radiodifusión del Estado Mexicano (SPR). It began operations in 2012 and is distribu ...
. As SPR's national transmitter network complements that of Canal Once, almost all of its stations also retransmit that network.
Television genres
Telenovelas
Mexico is one of the first countries in the world to be known for producing telenovelas aimed at shaping national social behavior – one issue of which is on
family planning
Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a person wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which they wish to have them. Things that may play a role on family planning decisions include marita ...
during the 1970s. The Mexican model of
telenovela
A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar drama genres around the world include '' teleserye'' ...
s (
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
) – then to be replicated by other telenovela-producing countries in Latin America and Asia for most of the 1990s – usually involves a romantic couple that encounters many problems throughout the show's run, a villain and usually ends with a
wedding
A wedding is a ceremony where two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes. Most wedding ceremonies involve an exchange of marriage vo ...
. One common ending archetype, consists of a wedding, and with the villain dying, going to jail, becoming permanently injured or disabled, or losing his/her mind. The use of sexually themed episodes starring the leading couple of the story has been a common element through most Mexican (and even Latin American) telenovelas. ''
Senda prohibida
''Senda Prohibida'' (English title: ''Forbidden Path'') is the first telenovela produced in Mexico. It was produced by Telesistema Mexicano and was broadcast June 12, 1958, from Monday to Friday.
It stars Silvia Derbez as the protagonist / antag ...
'' was the first telenovela produced in Mexico. It was produced by
Telesistema Mexicano
Telesistema Mexicano was the predecessor of Televisa. Telesistema Mexicano was a television alliance made up of the independently owned television flagship stations XEW Canal 2, XHTV Canal 4, and XHGC Canal 5 in Mexico, Distrito Federal.
Histo ...
and broadcast June 12, 1958, from Monday to Friday.
Televisa
Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content.
In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announce ...
and
TV Azteca
TV Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as some local operators. It owns two national ...
are the largest producers and exporters of Mexican telenovelas. Their main competitor is independent company
Argos Comunicación
Argos Comunicación is a television and film production company owned by Epigmenio Ibarra based in Mexico City.
Profile
The company started as the telenovela-production unit for TV Azteca with '' Nada personal'' and has since then produced many ...
. Telenovelas produced by U.S.-based network
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...
tend to follow the Mexican model. Previously, telenovelas were often thought to be used as a government tool to distract citizens from national issues, a reason cited for temporary decrease in their credibility and popular appeal. Nowadays, Mexican television has managed to counteract government influence in its telenovelas. In particular, around 1990, Televisa found an enormous market for its telenovelas in other parts of Latin America, post-
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
Eastern Europe and Asia. This precipitated the so-called 'Telenovela Craze'. Credited by media experts especially to Televisa's move in the early 1990s of exporting its telenovelas to parts of the world, this rivaled the wave of
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
sitcoms
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new ...
that had been broadcast worldwide in the same period.
During the peak of the global success of Latin American telenovelas in the 1990s and 2000s, several prominent Mexican actors and actresses gained huge following for the telenovelas that they starred and which were viewed in the mentioned regions. For example,
Verónica Castro
Verónica Castro (), full name Verónica Judith Sáinz Castro (born 19 October 1952), is a Mexican actress, singer, producer, former model and presenter.
She started her career as a television actress, where she met comedian Manuel Valdés, fa ...
's international fame grew when the novela she had starred in many years earlier, ''
Los ricos también lloran
''Los ricos también lloran'' ("The Rich Also Cry") is a popular telenovela produced in Mexico in 1979, starring Verónica Castro, Rogelio Guerra and Rocío Banquells. Castro also sang the theme ''Aprendí a Llorar'' ("I learned to cry"), a song ...
'' in 1979, became a major hit in Russia. In the 1982 telenovela Vanessa,
Lucía Méndez
Lucía Leticia Méndez Pérez (born January 26, 1955) is a Mexican telenovela and film actress, top model and singer. Méndez was born in León, Guanajuato, Mexico.
Career
In 2011, Lucía starred in Mexico the telenovela '' Esperanza del C ...
became the first star of a soap-opera to be killed; however, this was due to her alleged diva attitude which forced retaliation from the writers and producers to "kill Vanessa off", later she stated that she was sick with
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...
and that's the reason why she couldn't shoot the last scenes. In the same period,
Thalía
Ariadna Thalía Sodi Miranda (; born 26 August 1971), known mononymously as Thalía, is a Mexican singer and actress. Referred to as the " Queen of Latin Pop", she is considered one of the most successful and influential Mexican artists. Havin ...
earned the title as the 90's "Queen of Soap Operas" after starring in the so-called ''Las Tres Marias'' or the "Maria Trilogy" telenovelas – '' Maria Mercedes'', '' Marimar'' and ''
María la del Barrio
''María la del Barrio'' ( Lit: ''Maria from the neighborhood''/English title: ''Humble Maria'') is a Mexican telenovela produced by Angelli Nesma Medina for Televisa in 1995. The series is a remake of '' Los ricos también lloran''. ''María ...
'' – and '' Rosalinda'', converting her into one of the world's foremost television icons, as her telenovelas were broadcast in Mexico and more than 180 other countries to almost 2 billion viewers worldwide, earning the all-time highest television ratings both in Mexico and other regions.
Due to the international success of the telenovelas broadcast in and out of Mexico, by the late 1990s, the company claimed that telenovelas were Mexico's leading export product. Many consider the period from 1958 to 2004 to be Televisa's
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...
of telenovelas, at the same time when the Mexican government loosened its control over television. Telenovelas, primarily those produced by
Argos Comunicación
Argos Comunicación is a television and film production company owned by Epigmenio Ibarra based in Mexico City.
Profile
The company started as the telenovela-production unit for TV Azteca with '' Nada personal'' and has since then produced many ...
, consequently addressed new themes, including poverty, political corruption, immigration and drug smuggling. However, with American drama and comedy series becoming increasingly popular among Mexican audiences through
cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
or
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
television and unlicensed copying, the television companies opted to adapt stories from Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. These used veteran actors in order to decrease expenses.
Currently, the most successful telenovelas are being created by Argos and Telemundo and are rebroadcast (or adapted) by the main companies. The most successful one, '' La Reina del Sur'', based on the book by
Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Arturo Pérez-Reverte Gutiérrez (born 25 November 1951 in Cartagena) is a Spanish novelist and journalist. He worked as a war correspondent for RTVE for 21 years (1973–1994). His first novel, ''El húsar'', set in the Napoleonic Wars, was ...
, is based on the true story of a female drug trafficker in
Sinaloa
Sinaloa (), officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is d ...
.
On November 21, 2016, Televisa released a telenovela titled ''
La candidata
''La candidata'' is a Mexican telenovela produced by Giselle González for Televisa. It is an original story about the world of politics. A total of 60 episodes have been confirmed so far.
''La Candidata'' was well received by critics, with it ...
'' (The Candidate) protagonized by actress
Silvia Navarro
Silvia Angélica Navarro Barva (born September 14, 1978) is a Mexican actress. She debuted as actress in 1997, in the lead role in the telenovela '' Perla''. Since then, she continued to work for Mexican TV network TV Azteca, and later for Te ...
as Regina Bárcenas (whom acts as the speculated fictional stand-in for
Margarita Zavala
Margarita Ester Zavala Gómez del Campo (; born on 25 July 1967) is a Mexican lawyer and politician serving as Member of the Chamber of Deputies for Mexico City's 10th District since 2021. She is the wife of the former President of Mexico Felip ...
) and Rafael Sánchez Navarro as her husband Alonso San Roman (which acts as the speculated fictional stand-in for
Felipe Calderón
Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa (; born 18 August 1962) is a Mexican politician who served as the 63rd president of Mexico from 1 December 2006 to 30 November 2012 and Secretary of Energy during the presidency of Vicente Fox between 2003 a ...
). It is heavily speculated this television program, was created in order to favor Zavala in the 2018 elections against MORENA's political candidate
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (; born 13 November 1953), also known by his initials AMLO, is a Mexican politician who has been serving as the 65th president of Mexico since 1 December 2018. He previously served as Head of Government of Mexico ...
whom Televisa did not want as president due to his leftist political points of view.
Television sitcoms
El Chavo del 8
''El Chavo'' (English: ''The Kid''); — also known as ''El Chavo del Ocho'' (English: ''The Kid from number Eight'') during its earliest episodes —, is a Mexican television sitcom created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños, produced by Televisa. I ...
was a Mexican comic television series created by and starring Chespirito. The program deals with the experiences of a group of people who live in a Mexican neighborhood where its protagonist, is a poor orphan nicknamed "El Chavo" (which means "The Kid"). At its peak of popularity during the mid-1970s, it had a Latin American audience of over 350 million viewers per episode.
El Chapulín Colorado
''El Chapulín Colorado'' (English: ''The Red Grasshopper'') is a Mexican television comedy series that ran from 1973 to 1979 and parodied superhero shows. It was created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños ( Chespirito), who also played the main ch ...
('The Red Grasshopper' or as Captain Hopper in the English version of the animated series) was also a Mexican television comedy series that ran from 1973 to 1979 and parodied superhero shows. It was first aired by Televisa in 1973 in Mexico, and then was aired across Latin America and Spain until 1981, alongside El Chavo, which shared the same cast of actors.
Jorge Ortiz de Pinedo
Jorge Ortiz de Pinedo Pallás (born March 26, 1948) is a Mexican comedian, actor, film director, screenwriter, television producer and host.
He is the son of actors, the Cuban Óscar Ortiz de Pinedo and Mexican Lupita Pallás, and has appe ...
worked in various successful television series, the most successful of which have been Dr. Cándido Pérez, Cero en conducta, and its sequel, La escuelita VIP, and lastly
Una familia de diez
''Una familia de diez'' (English title: ''The 10 of Us''), also known as Una familia de diez + 2 for the second season, is a Mexican television sitcom that centers on the López household, a middle class Mexican family that constantly endures hila ...
. Ortiz de Pinedo was featured in the 2007 book Televisa presenta (presents), which takes a look back at 50 years of network television in Mexico. He has worked as Mexican producer, director, writer, comedian and actor. Modern show include
La familia P. Luche
''La familia P. Luche'' ( en, The P.Lush Family) is a Mexican family sitcom created by Eugenio Derbez. The series aired from August 7, 2002 to September 16, 2012 on the channel Canal de las Estrellas. It is a spin-off of a regular sketch on the ...
it features a dysfunctional family living in a city with a lot of plush fabric with plenty of terms related to family drama and general everyday life and
Vecinos
''Vecinos'' ( en, Neighbors) is a Mexican television series created by Eugenio Derbez, based on Spanish television series ''Aquí no hay quien viva''. It premiered on Las Estrellas on July 10, 2005. The series portrays the life of everyday peopl ...
the series portrays the life of everyday people in Mexican barrios, where anything can be found — the jealous housewife, the spinster, the strange family, etc. Each episode features the interactions between these peculiar neighbors, where they deal with problems both real and imagined, such as ghosts, treasures, ripoffs, fights, etc.. Contemporary shows consist of '' Lorenza'' starring
Bárbara Torres
Bárbara Torres (born May 9, 1975, in Mar del Plata) is an Argentine television, theatre and film actress best known for her roles in ''Hospital El Paisa'', ''VidaTV'', and as " Exelsa" in '' La familia P. Luche''.Mi querida herencia'' (My Dear Inheritance) Carlos Fernández de León is a partying and irresponsible man who lives off his father's money. When he dies, his father decides to leave his fortune to Carlos, with one condition: he must get married. Lastly '' 40 and 20'' divorced father and teenage son respectively, live all kinds of entanglements and nonsense within the typical coexistence of a family divorced and dysfunctional.
La India María
"La India María" (born María Nicolasa Cruz) is a fictional character portrayed and created by actress María Elena Velasco.Mujer, casos de la vida real'' and ''
La familia P. Luche
''La familia P. Luche'' ( en, The P.Lush Family) is a Mexican family sitcom created by Eugenio Derbez. The series aired from August 7, 2002 to September 16, 2012 on the channel Canal de las Estrellas. It is a spin-off of a regular sketch on the ...
''. She has represented the poor
indigenous
Indigenous may refer to:
*Indigenous peoples
*Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention
*Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band
*Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...
, the migrant worker, and even free-spirited nuns for over 30 years. She has been the lead character in 16 films and in a spin-off television series entitled ''
Ay María qué puntería
''Ay María qué puntería!'' ( en, María, what an aim!) is a Mexican sitcom, from Televisa. It centers on the adventures of an indigenous Mexican woman named La India María, who works as a maid in Mexico City.telenovela
A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar drama genres around the world include '' teleserye'' ...
accused of being biased in favor of the governing party's candidate in the context of the
2006 Mexican general election
6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number.
In mathematics
Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...
, and by
Víctor Trujillo
Víctor Alberto Trujillo Matamoros (born July 30, 1961) is a Mexican actor and comedian. He is best known for his character ''Brozo el Payaso Tenebroso'' (Brozo the Creepy Clown), a green-haired, unkempt, obscene and aggressive clown (an anti-c ...
, a comedian and news host famous for his black humor and for his attacks on politicians.
History
Television in Mexico first began on August 19, 1946, in Mexico City when
Guillermo González Camarena
Guillermo González Camarena (17 February 1917 – 18 April 1965) was a Mexican electrical engineer who was the inventor of a color-wheel type of color television.
Early life
González Camarena was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. He was the younge ...
transmitted the first television signal in Latin America from the bathroom of his home. On September 7, 1946, at 8:30 PM (CST) Mexico's and Latin America's first experimental television station was established and was given the XE1GC callsign. This experimental station broadcast an artistic program and interviews on Saturdays for two years.
Mexico's first commercial station,
XHTV
XHTV-TDT (virtual channel 4), founded in 1950 by Romulo O'Farril, is a flagship TV station of Televisa and carries its Foro (TV channel), FORO news network. FOROtv is available on various cable television companies and SKY México satellite serv ...
channel 4 in Mexico City, signed on August 31, 1950, making Mexico the first Spanish-speaking country to introduce television. It started transmitting regular programs on the following day. The first program to be broadcast was President
Miguel Alemán Valdés
Miguel Alemán Valdés (; 29 September 1900 – 14 May 1983) was a Mexican politician who served a full term as the President of Mexico from 1946 to 1952, the first civilian president after a string of revolutionary generals. His administr ...
IV Informe de Gobierno. Within a year,
XEW-TV
XEW-TDT (channel 2) is a television station in Mexico City, Mexico. The station is owned by Grupo Televisa and is the flagship station to the Las Estrellas network. XEW is the second-oldest Televisa station and Mexico City's second-oldest stati ...
channel 2, owned by the Azcárraga family, was formed. Mexico's first color television transmission was carried out by the third television station in the capital, González Camarena's
XHGC
XHGC-TDT (channel 5) is a television station owned by Grupo Televisa, broadcasting from Mexico City, and is the flagship of the Canal 5 network.
History
XHGC signed on May 10, 1952, broadcasting a Mother's Day event organized by the Excélsior ...
Canal 5. In 1955, all three stations formed an alliance,
Telesistema Mexicano
Telesistema Mexicano was the predecessor of Televisa. Telesistema Mexicano was a television alliance made up of the independently owned television flagship stations XEW Canal 2, XHTV Canal 4, and XHGC Canal 5 in Mexico, Distrito Federal.
Histo ...
(TSM), the predecessor to Televisa. In 1959,
XEIPN-TV
Once (Eleven; formerly Once TV México and Canal Once) is a Mexican educational broadcast television network owned by National Polytechnic Institute. The network's flagship station is XEIPN-TDT channel 11 in Mexico City. It broadcasts across ...
channel 11 signed on, the base of today's Canal Once network and the first educational television station in Latin America.
Broadcast expansion
With the exception of the short-lived but popular
Televisión Independiente de México
Televisión Independiente de México (''Independent Mexican Television'', known on air as TIM or Cadena TIM) was a Mexican national television network founded in 1965 by Eugenio Garza Sada. It operated until 1973, when it merged with its primar ...
(1968–72), which TSM absorbed in 1973 to form Televisa, the latter saw no major commercial competition until 1993. Instead, the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s were marked by a large expansion in state-owned television. This took flight in 1972 when the government, through financier SOMEX, expropriated
XHDF-TV
XHDF-TDT, virtual channel 1 ( UHF digital channel 25), is the flagship station of the Azteca Uno television network in Mexico City, Mexico. Azteca Uno can be seen in most major cities in Mexico through TV Azteca's owned-and-operated transmitter ...
in Mexico City and used it to form the base of a Canal 13 national network with repeaters across the country. At the same time, a project known as Televisión Rural de México (later Televisión de la República Mexicana) sought to bring culture and information to rural Mexican audiences. In the 1980s, XHTRM-TV channel 22, the first UHF television station in the Valle de México, came to air bringing TRM programming to the nation's capital. In 1985, TRM was dismantled, and with the sign-on of
XHIMT-TV
XHIMT-TDT (virtual channel 7) is the flagship station and namesake of Mexico's Azteca 7 network, located in Mexico City.
History
XHIMT came to air on May 15, 1985, as part of Imevisión's relaunch of the Televisión de la República Mexicana n ...
channel 7 in Mexico City, the TRM repeaters were linked to that station, which became the flagship of the Red Nacional 7 of
Imevisión
The Instituto Mexicano de la Televisión (''Mexican Television Institute''), known commercially as Imevisión after 1985, was a state broadcaster and federal government agency of Mexico. At its height, Imevisión programmed two national networks ...
. In 1993, Imevisión's privatization gave birth to
Televisión Azteca
TV Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as some local operators. It owns two national ...
.
This time period also saw the development of the first television networks run by state governments, including TVMÁS in Veracruz and TeleMichoacán. 25 of Mexico's 32 federal entities currently boast state networks.
Cable television
The first cable system started to operate in the early 1960s in Monterrey, as a CATV service (an antenna at the top of the Loma Larga, which could get TV signals from
Laredo, Texas
Laredo ( ; ) is a city in and the county seat of Webb County, Texas, United States, on the north bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, across from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Laredo has the distinction of flying seven flags (the flag of t ...
and the
Rio Grande Valley
The Lower Rio Grande Valley ( es, Valle del Río Grande), commonly known as the Rio Grande Valley or locally as the Valley or RGV, is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. The ...
). Most of the other major cities didn't develop cable systems until the late 1980s, due to government censorship. By 1989, the industry had had a major impulse with the founding of Multivisión—a MMDS system who started to develop its own channels in Spanish—and the later development of companies such as Cablemás and
Megacable
Megacable Holdings S. A. B. de C.V., doing business as Megacable Comunicaciones, is a Mexican cable operator and provider of internet and phone service. It has its headquarters in, Guadalajara, Jalisco.CNN en Español
CNN en Español is a Pan-American Spanish-language news channel, owned by CNN Global, a news division for Warner Bros. Discovery. It was launched on pay television, on 17 March 1997.
History CNN en Español before 1997
In 1988, CNN began produc ...
,
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
,
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
,
Disney Channel
Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...
,
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...
, and others. The country also has a DTH service called SKY (Televisa & News Corp. owned). Recently DirecTV merged with Sky. The dominant company nowadays is
NHK
, also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee.
NHK operates two terrestr ...
and under the direction of Director of High Technology Projects Leonardo Ramos Mateos on the basis that Televisa would adopt the latter's
MUSE
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...
analog high-definition system, branded in Japan as Hi-Vision. The Mexican broadcast conglomerate wanted to develop a dedicated pay-per-view network using the Japanese broadcast standard that would offer first-run Hollywood movies to prospective local owners of MUSE Hi-Vision equipment, which was known to cost upwards of US$30,000 at the time in Japan, as consumer equipment availability was in its infancy and low manufacturing volumes contributed to its high cost.
At this time in the nation's history, Mexico was also one of the slowest international markets to screen Hollywood films in cinemas, typically screening major releases up to 18 months after their initial premiere in the United States due to government interference and censorship. The impetus behind the test and the development of the premium pay-per-view network was for Televisa to investigate purchasing the rights to major Hollywood releases and broadcast them over the small-scale network as close to their US premiere as possible, with a variable fee depending on film.
The high cost of the home audio and video equipment, namely widescreen format televisions and audio/video receivers would have limited the service and the equipment to the wealthiest neighborhoods in Mexico City, and representatives from Televisa were quick to acknowledge this, stating that the wealthy would have been willing to purchase the equipment, not just for personal use in their homes, but as a way to form social clubs with friends and neighbors, suggesting that equipment owners and established social clubs would charge for the privilege of seeing a first-run Hollywood film and defray the costs of the equipment and film rental.
After the six-week trial ended, Televisa instead decided to end further development of the initiative, with an aborted attempt being made to involve U.S.-based electronics manufacturer
Scientific Atlanta
Scientific Atlanta, Inc. was a Georgia, United States-based manufacturer of cable television, telecommunications, and broadband equipment. Scientific Atlanta was founded in 1951 by a group of engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a ...
in a bid to lower equipment manufacturing and import costs. The trial ended without further development due to the unique topography and mix of building construction types in Mexico City affecting the reliability of the test signal being broadcast from a temporary broadcast site on the Pico Tres Padres mountain peak with high-rise buildings around the peak affecting reception.
Following the aborted Japanese HDTV tests, the digital television transition that began in the early 2000s saw the Mexican government allow Televisa to test multiple digital television systems in Mexico City starting in 2002, with the broadcast conglomerate testing the US-developed
ATSC
Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like that ...
, the Japanese ISDB, ISDB-T and European DVB-T broadcast standards within the immediate vicinity of its San Angel production and broadcast complex for 18 months, before ultimately settling on the ATSC standard for reasons of costs and convenience officially in 2004. The decision led the Mexican government to devise several switchover plans later that year, none of which held firm as the Mexican government sought to end analog television broadcasts by December 31, 2016. In major markets, particularly in central Mexico and along the US border, digital television stations began on air broadcasts as soon as 2006. A revised plan in 2013 saw a change to switching off analog television markets separately until a national analog shutoff date was set for December 31, 2015. The first market to meet the conditions of the 90% digital coverage requirement was Tijuana. After a one-month delay to ensure that digital television coverage had crossed the 90% threshold, analog signals were turned off on May 28. However, the Mexican government agency in charge of broadcast networks in Cofetel at the time allowed the Tijuana-area stations to resume analog broadcasting just a few days after ending analog broadcasts over concerns that the digital switchover would have a negative impact in the lead up to state elections on July 7; the digital television switchover was made permanent two weeks later on July 18. (Spanish)
Delays in the digital television switchover continued due to legal concerns and the telecommunications reform of 2013–14 enacted by President Enrique Peña Nieto required entirely new legislation in the sector and created the new Federal Telecommunications Institute as a result. However, the digital television switchover resumed in 2015 when Reynosa/Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo switched off analog broadcasts on January 13, the first of ten dates that year in which stations in various regions of the country shut off analog television transmission. By December 31, all high-power stations had shut off analog broadcasts, with some 500 low-power analog stations remaining in service for an additional year due to the financial difficulties encountered by public broadcasters in transitioning to digital broadcasting and the continued existence of analog repeater stations unprepared for digital television broadcasts.
Cable channels
*Tiin – Airs children's and teens' series and movies.
*De Película – Mexican cinema from the Golden Era. Available in Mexico, Latin America, United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
*TeleHit – Hit Music Network. Mexico and U.S.
*Tlnovelas – Televisa's most famous soap operas. Pan American, European and Australian Versions.
*Unicable – Univision and low-cost productions.
*TVC – Magazine Network. Available in all Mexican states except Distrito Federal (Mexico), DF. Produced by major cable-system operator PCTV.
*Platino (TV network), Platino – B-Movies.
Most viewed channels
See also
*
Televisa
Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content.
In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announce ...
*
Televisión Azteca
TV Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as some local operators. It owns two national ...
* Imagen Televisión
* Jacobo Zabludovsky
* Javier Alatorre
* Joaquín López Dóriga
* Carlos Loret de Mola
* Ciro Gómez Leyva
* Chespirito
* Eugenio Derbez
* List of television stations in Mexico
* List of Mexican television networks
References
Further reading
*Mejía Barquera, Fernando. ''La industria de la radio y televisión y la política del estado mexicano (1920-1960)''. Mexico City: Fundación Manuel Buendía 1989.
*Saragoza, Alex M. "Television." ''Encyclopedia of Mexico''. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997, pp. 1397-1400.
*Trejo Delarbre, Raúl, ed. ''Televisa: El quinto poder''. Mexico City: Claves Latinoamerianas 1985.
External links
Official Mexican TDT portal
{{Telecommunications
Television in Mexico,
1946 establishments in Mexico
Mexican television sitcoms