Las Estrellas ("The Stars"; previously El Canal de las Estrellas, or "The Channel of the

Stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

") is one of the cornerstone networks of

TelevisaUnivision TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American media company headquartered in New York and Mexico City, which owns the American Spanish language broadcast network Univision. 45% of the company is held by the ...

, with affiliate stations all over Mexico, flagshipped at

XEW-TDT 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 stat ...

in Mexico City. Many of the programs of ''Las Estrellas'' are seen in the United States on

Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes ...

UniMás UniMás (, stylized as ''UNIMÁS'', and originally known as TeleFutura from its launch on January 14, 2002, to January 6, 2013) is an American Spanish free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The network's programming, which i ...

, and

Galavisión Galavisión is an American Spanish-language pay television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The network is unrelated to the earlier Mexican channel of the same name, though both broadcast Televisa-produced programming. As of February 2015 ...

History

Las Estrellas originated from XEW-TV, which began broadcasting on 21 March 1951. The channel was a sister station to the legendary

XEW-AM XEW-AM is a radio station in Mexico City, Mexico, broadcasting on the AM frequency of 900 kHz; it is branded as ''W Radio''. XEW-AM serves as the originating station for other "W Radio" stations around Mexico that carry some of its program ...

radio station, owned by

Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta (2 March 1895, Tampico, Tamaulipas – 23 September 1972, Mexico City) was a Mexican businessman who built an entertainment conglomerate. The son of Basque immigrants Mariano Azcárraga and Emilia Vidaurreta, hi ...

, which was also the owner of the newly launched channel. It was the second commercial TV channel to be established in Mexico City, after

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, owned by the Novedades newspaper. XEW-TV's first transmission was a live, play-by-play, outside broadcast of a

Mexican League The Mexican League (, ) is a professional baseball league based in Mexico and the oldest running professional league in the country. The league has 18 teams organized in two divisions, North and South. Teams play 114 games each season. Five te ...

match, with XEW radio veteran

Pedro Septién Pedro Septién Orozco (March 21, 1916 – December 19, 2013) was a Mexican sports broadcaster. He was nicknamed ''El Mago'' (Spanish for "The Wizard"). Septien was famous in Mexico due to his vast knowledge about Major League Baseball. He worked ...

on commentary duties. Other than live sports broadcasts, XEW-TV initially broadcast films from the

Golden Age of Mexican cinema The Golden Age of Mexican cinema ( es, Época de Oro del Cine Mexicano) is a period in the history of the Cinema of Mexico between 1930 and 1969 when the Mexican film industry reached high levels of production, quality and economic success of its ...

, as its studios in Chapultepec 18 were still under construction. The studio complex, known as Televicentro, would be inaugurated in January 1952. Soon thereafter, the programming scope would be expanded to include live variety shows and television theatre showcases, in a style similar to XEW radio's similarly formatted shows. XEW-TV would be a pioneer in Mexican television, and would establish many industry firsts. In 1962, the channel would become the flagship network of the newly merged Telesistema Mexicano, which also brought XHTV and XHGC under Azcárraga's hands, and, after merging with XHTM-TV and

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 ...

, many of these station's programs would move to XEW-TV. As a result, XEW-TV rapidly grew and became the country's most watched TV network, a position which was undisputed for many years, as Televisa held a monopoly on commercial TV in Mexico, which even went into heavily influencing the political landscape in the country. As a result, by 1985, and in preparation for the 1986 FIFA World Cup (in which Televisa was the host broadcaster), XEW-TV was renamed El Canal de las Estrellas, in reference to the station's line-up of actors, comedians and presenters. This was further reinforced with the launch of an image campaign song, sung by

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 ...

, in 1988. After the death of

Emilio Azcárraga Milmo Emilio Azcárraga Milmo or Emilio Azcárraga Jr. (September 6, 1930 in San Antonio, Texas - April 16, 1997 outside Miami, Florida) was a Mexican-American businessman and the son of Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta and Laura Milmo Hickman. He was educ ...

in 1997, El Canal de las Estrellas suffered a massive restructuring of its programming. The biggest moment of the restructuring came in 1998, when 24 Horas, the

Jacobo Zabludovsky Jacobo Zabludovsky Kraveski (May 24, 1928 – July 2, 2015) was a Mexican journalist. He was the first anchorman in Mexican television and his TV news program, ''24 Horas'' (''24 Hours'') was for decades regarded as the most important in the cou ...

-anchored newscast, long a propaganda mouthpiece of the Mexican political regime, was canceled. The station's brand identity was also replaced with a new logo created by Pablo Rovalo. After a period of ratings turmoil, viewership stabilized, but the channel had to contend now with a surgent

XHDF 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 ne ...

, freshly privatized and bought under the auspicies of

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 nationa ...

. After years of decline, particularly after

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

, as accusations of political bias in favor of then-President

Enrique Peña Nieto Enrique Peña Nieto (; born 20 July 1966), commonly referred to by his initials EPN, is a Mexican politician who served as the 64th president of Mexico from 1 December 2012 to 30 November 2018. A member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party ...

began to hamper the broadcaster's credibility, in 2016, the decision was made to relaunch entirely the station's branding and programming. On 22 August 2016, XEW-TV was renamed as Las Estrellas, and introduced many changes to its programming schedule, including shorter and snappier telenovelas and news programming, as well as dropping many long-running programming in favour of programming oriented to a younger audience. The changes generated a big ratings decline; as a result, by 2017, much of the new programming was canceled and the prime time telenovelas and news programming were relocated to pre-relaunch timeslots and viewership stabilized, specially, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

Las Estrellas Internacional

Las Estrellas is available as a pay television network in Europe and Australia as Las Estrellas Europa and Las Estrellas Latinoamérica in Central and South America through Televisa Networks.Canal de las Estrellas Latinoamerica: Latin America coverage
Both feeds differ from the Las Estrellas programming, usually broadcasting shows weeks behind their original broadcast. In Canada, XEW-TDT and the Las Estrellas schedule is available in full on Rogers Cable (limited to the Greater Toronto Area) and Bell Fibe TV as an eligible foreign service.

Network logos

File:XEW TV Canal 2 1950 logo.PNG, 1951 logo File:Canal 2 1970s logo.PNG, 1968 logo File:El Canal de las Estrellas 1980s logo.PNG, 1988 logo El Canal de las Estrellas 1993.png , 1993 logo File:Canal de las Estrellas 1997-2007.svg, 1997 logo File:Canal de las Estrellas logo.svg, 2007 logo File:XEW-TV2014.png, 2014 logo File:Las Estrellas.svg, 2016 logo

Programming

Weekday programming in the afternoon and prime time consists 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. Las Estrellas airs sports programming and sports specials like the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. Morning and afternoon programming consists of news, sports, talk shows, and variety shows. Night time programming is filled with a news program and

-produced shows. Examples of shows produced by Las Estrellas are ''Recuerda y Gana'', ''Hoy'', ''El Juego de las Estrellas'', and ''Cuéntamelo ya''. The network also produces and airs the ''

Premios TVyNovelas The Premios TVyNovelas are presented annually by Televisa and the magazine TVyNovelas to honor the best Mexican television productions, including telenovelas. Instituted in 1983, the award ceremony rotates between Mexico City and Acapulco. The c ...

'', sponsored by the Televisa-owned magazine of the same name and considered the highest honor in the domestic Mexican television industry.

Repeaters

The following is a list of all full-time Las Estrellas repeaters: , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , -

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Estrellas, Las Television channels and stations established in 1951 Television networks in Mexico Televisa broadcast television networks Mass media in Mexico City Spanish-language television stations in Mexico 1951 establishments in Mexico