XEW-AM is a
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...
in
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley of ...
,
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 Guate ...
, 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 programs. The programming on XEW-AM is also simulcast on Mexico City FM radio station 96.9 XEW-FM.
History
XEW began regular broadcasts at 20:00 CST on September 18, 1930. Broadcasting from a room (later to become a proper studio) at the Olympia Cinema on 16 September Street in Mexico City, it initially had only 5 kW of transmitter power, although this was increased to 50 kW by 1934. With the installation of new transmitters, the power became 250 kW by 1935 and remained there for more than 80 years, making XEW-AM the most powerful AM radio station in North America. On February 10, 2016, XEW-AM was approved to relocate its transmitter to a site in Los Reyes Acaquilpan, La Paz Municipality, in the State of Mexico and to reduce power to 100,000 watts.
It was the first Mexico City station in
Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta Emilio may refer to:
* Emilio Navaira, a Mexican-American singer often called "Emilio"
* Emilio Piazza Memorial School, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State
* Emilio (given name)
* ''Emilio'' (film), a 2008 film by Kim Jorgensen
See also
* Emílio ...
's ''Chain of the Americas,'' the forerunner to today's
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 ...
whose radio unit still owns XEW-AM. XEW-AM originally was affiliated with the
NBC Radio Network
The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first ...
s (NBC and
Blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...
); its future sister stations would take affiliation with rival networks,
XEQ-AM
XEQ-AM (940 kHz) is a commercial class A clear channel AM radio station in Mexico City. The concession is held by Cadena Radiodifusora Mexicana, S.A. de C.V. and is operated by Radiópolis. XEQ-AM broadcasts from a transmitter located at Los ...
with
CBS and
XEX-AM
XEX-AM (730 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station based in Mexico City, Mexico. It carries a sports radio format known as "W Deportes." The station is owned by Radiópolis.
XEX is a Class A clear-channel station, powered at 60,000 watts and ...
with
Mutual. As radio in Mexico evolved with the country's growth and more radio stations signed on, XEW-AM became flagship to the country's largest radio network. Several radio and television stations have derived their call signs from XEW radio and
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...
, all of them affiliated at one time or another with Televisa.
In the United States, the call letters for
KXEW
KXEW is a commercial radio station located in South Tucson, Arizona, broadcasting to the Tucson, Arizona, area on 1600 AM. KXEW airs a tejano music format branded as "Radio Tejano". The station is owned by . Its studios are located north of d ...
, a commercial AM radio station in Tucson, Arizona, owned by Pan American Radio Corporation, that went on the air May 10, 1963, were chosen by its president and CEO, J. Carlos McCormick, because of his admiration of Azcarraga, whom he had met as a teenager during a 1950 visit to Mexico City.
XEW-FM
The FM frequency, 96.9, received its concession on April 28, 1962; it was not launched until the 1970s, and by the end of that decade, it carried a
disco format. By 1981, it had changed to "Rock Stereo". On September 9, 1985, it was renamed "WFM" with an English rock and pop format, being the direct competition of
XHSON-FM
XHSON-FM is a EDM radio station in Mexico City owned and operated by NRM Comunicaciones. Its 4 regular presenters and 31 resident DJs (alongside several additional guest DJs from time to time) host the station's 24-hour mix of electro-house, tech ...
(then known as "Rock 101"). Among the DJs that conformed the station were
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Alejandro González Iñárritu (; American Spanish: ; credited since 2016 as Alejandro G. Iñárritu; born 15 August 1963) is a Mexican filmmaker and screenwriter. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the hu ...
,
Martha Debayle
Martha (Hebrew language, Hebrew: מָרְתָא) is a Bible, biblical figure described in the Gospels of Gospel of Luke, Luke and Gospel of John, John. Together with her siblings Lazarus of Bethany, Lazarus and Mary of Bethany, she is describe ...
and
Charo Fernández
María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza, professionally known by her stage name Charo, is a Spanish-American actress, singer, comedian, and flamenco guitarist.
Charo began playing guitar at the age of nine and trained under the famed An ...
.
After 14 years, in 1999, the station changed its name and format to "W Radical", directed by the former head of "Rock 101", Luis Gerardo Salas, airing
electronic music
Electronic music is a Music genre, genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or electronics, circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromech ...
and
eurodance
Euro-Dance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG, Euro-electronica or Euro) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in Europe. It combines many elements of hip hop, techno, Hi-NRG, house music, and Euro-Disco. Thi ...
. By 2001, it returned to its former WFM format with the slogan "Frecuencia Adictiva", but in late 2002, after the association of Televisa Radio and PRISA, it was decided to simulcast the same programming on AM and FM, and thus XEW-FM became a news and talk outlet, albeit musical programming can still be heard on overnights and weekends when there are not sports scheduled.
Personalities
*
Manuel "Maber" Bernal
Manuel may refer to:
People
* Manuel (name)
* Manuel (Fawlty Towers), a fictional character from the sitcom ''Fawlty Towers''
* Charlie Manuel, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies
* Manuel I Komnenos, emperor of the Byzantine Empire
* Ma ...
*
Emilio Tuero
Emilio Tuero Cubillas (5 April 1912 – 22 July 1971), known as Emilio Tuero, was a Spanish-Mexican actor, producer, and singer. He was considered a popular star of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.
Filmography
* '' Cri Cri el grillito cant ...
*
Juan Arvizu
Juan Nepomuceno Arvizu Santelices (known as Juan Arvizu; Santiago de Querétaro, May 22, 1900 - Mexico City, November 19, 1985), was an acclaimed lyric tenor in Mexico and a noted interpreter of the Latin American bolero and tango on the internati ...
*
Luis Arcaráz
Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...
*
Nicolás Urcelay
Nicolás Urcelay (20 December 1919 – 1 July 1959) was a Mexican singer.
Selected filmography
* '' Desired'' (1951)
1959 deaths
1919 births
Mexican pianists
20th-century pianists
Male pianists
20th-century Mexican male singers
P ...
*
Alfonso Ortiz Tirado Alfonso Ortiz Tirado (Álamos, Sonora, 24 January 1893 – Mexico City, 7 September 1960) was an opera singer and medical doctor. His musical talent was apparently evident early in life, but he studied at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and univer ...
*
Los Panchos
Originally, Trio Los Panchos are a '' trío romántico'' formed in New York City in 1944 by Alfredo Gil, Chucho Navarro, and Hernando Avilés. The trio became one of the leading exponents of the bolero and the romantic ballad in Latin America. ...
*
Juan García Esquivel
Juan García Esquivel (January 20, 1918 – January 3, 2002), often known mononymously as Esquivel!, was a Mexican band leader, pianist, and composer for television and films. He is recognized today as one of the foremost exponents of a sophisti ...
*
Mario Ruiz Armengol
Mario Ruiz Armengol (known as "Mayito" or "Mister Harmony") (March 14, 1914 in Veracruz, Mexico – December 22, 2002 in Cancun, Mexico), was a Mexican pianist, composer, arranger, conductor and music teacher. He was the son of pianist and cond ...
*
Maria Luisa Landín
*
María Victoria
María Victoria Gutiérrez Cervantes (born 26 February 1927 in Guadalajara, Jalisco) is a Mexican actress, singer, and comedian. She is best known for starring in the Telesistema Mexicano sitcom ''La criada bien criada'' and its 1972 spin-off fi ...
*
Mario Moreno Cantinflas
Mario Fortino Alfonso Moreno Reyes (12 August 1911 – 20 April 1993), known by the stage name Cantinflas (), was a Mexican comedian, actor, and filmmaker. He is considered to have been the most widely-accomplished Mexican comedian and is celeb ...
*
Germán Valdés
Germán Genaro Cipriano Gómez Valdés y Castillo (19 September 1915 – 29 June 1973), known professionally as Tin-Tan, was a Mexican actor, singer and comedian who was born in Mexico City but was raised and began his career in Ciudad Juarez, ...
"Tin-Tan"
* José Sabre Marroquín
*
Agustín Lara
Ángel Agustín María Carlos Fausto Mariano Alfonso del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Lara y Aguirre del Pino (; October 30, 1897 – November 6, 1970), known as Agustín Lara, was a Mexican composer and performer of songs and boleros. He is recogn ...
*
Toña la Negra
Antonia del Carmen Peregrino Álvarez (2 November 1912 – 19 November 1982), known by her stage name Toña la Negra (Toña the Black Woman), was a Mexican singer and actress of partial Haitian ancestry, known for her interpretation of boleros and ...
*
Angelines Fernández
María de los Ángeles Fernández Abad (30 July 1924 – 25 March 1994), known professionally as Angelines Fernández, was a Spanish-Mexican actress and comedian. She is best remembered for playing Doña Clotilde "La Bruja del 71" in the sitcom ...
*
Carmen Rey
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first perfo ...
*
Pedro Infante
Pedro Infante Cruz (; 18 November 1917 – 15 April 1957) was a Mexican ranchera music singer and actor, whose career spanned the golden age of Mexican cinema. His popularity spread across Latin America.
Infante was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa ...
*
Jorge Negrete
Jorge Alberto Negrete Moreno (; 30 November 1911 – 5 December 1953) was a Mexican singer and actor.
Life and career
Negrete was born in the city of Guanajuato and had two brothers and three sisters; his father was a Mexican Army Colonel who f ...
*
Pedro Vargas
Pedro Vargas Mata ( San Miguel de Allende, 29 April 1906 – Mexico City, 30 October 1989) was a Mexican tenor and actor, from the golden age of Mexican cinema, participating in more than 70 films. He was known as the "Nightingale of the Ame ...
*
Gustavo Adolfo Palma
Gustavo Adolfo Palma (31 August 1920 – 1 December 2009) was a Guatemalan singer, actor, and lyric tenor between 1936 and 1970, nicknamed "the Tenor of Central America" by Guatemalan radio personality José Flamenco y Cotero.
Early years
Pal ...
from
Guatemala
*
Fernando Fernández
*
Eulalio González "Piporro"
*
Francisco Gabilondo Soler
Francisco Gabilondo Soler (October 6, 1907, Orizaba, Veracruz Mexico – December 14, 1990, Texcoco, State of Mexico) was a Mexican composer and performer of children's songs. He recorded and performed those songs under the name of '' Cri-Cri: El ...
("Cri-Cri")
*
Hugo Avendaño
Hugo Avendaño Espinoza (8 March 1927 – 5 January 1998) was a Mexican singer and actor.
Career
He was a student of the Faculty of Medicine, UNAM, but abandoned his career of Medicine to studying singing in the position of baritone. He began hi ...
,
Amparo Montes
Amparo Meza Cruz (24 April 1920 – 12 January 2002), known by her stage name Amparo Montes, was a Mexican singer, famous for her renditions of popular boleros by Agustín Lara
Ángel Agustín María Carlos Fausto Mariano Alfonso del Sagrado ...
*
Héctor Martínez Serrano
*
Antonio Aguilar
José Pascual Antonio Aguilar Márquez Barraza (17 May 191919 June 2007) was a Mexican singer, actor, songwriter, equestrian, film producer, and screenwriter with a dominating career in music. He recorded over 150 albums, which sold 25 mill ...
*
Paco Stanley
Francisco Jorge Stanley Albaitero (3 July 1942 – 7 June 1999), known by his stage name Paco Stanley, was a Mexican television entertainer who worked for Televisa and TV Azteca.
Career
In 1966, his first father-in-law paid for his radio ...
External links
XEW-AM, official page*
*
*
References
{{Authority control
Radio stations in Mexico City
Radiópolis
News and talk radio stations in Mexico
Radio stations established in 1930
Clear-channel radio stations