''24 Horas'' (''24 Hours'') was a Mexican television news program broadcast from 1970 to 1998, presented by

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 co ...

. It aired on ''El Canal de las Estrellas'' for 27 years, beginning on September 7, 1970. As the longest-running news show on Mexican television, it achieved nearly three uninterrupted decades of broadcasting. The program ended on Monday, January 19, 1998, although Zabludovsky continued working at Televisa until 2000. 24 Horas was highly influential and became the most-watched news show in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. This news show was the first to be produced entirely by a dedicated news team from the same network, without relying on newspaper articles.

History

In 1952,

took on various roles as a writer and substitute presenter for news programs. In 1969, the Mexican television company

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-TV, XEW Canal 2, XHTV-TV, XHTV Canal 4, and XHGC-TV, XHGC Canal 5 in Mexico, D ...

(later renamed

Televisa Grupo Televisa, S.A.B., simply known as Televisa, is a Mexican telecommunications and broadcasting company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content. In April ...

) established its General Directorate of News. This led to the creation of informational segments on the company’s channels, which were initially brief and produced on a limited budget. Subsequently, a one-hour program titled ''Café Matutino'', hosted by Zabludovsky, was introduced. This show served as a precursor to ''24 Horas''. In its early years, ''24 Horas'' was broadcast in the evenings from Monday to Friday. In the mid-1970s, an afternoon edition titled ''24 Horas de la Tarde'' was launched. In later years, the program also aired on Saturdays. On September 1, 1988, under Jacobo Zabludovsky's direction, '' Empresa de Comunicaciones Orbitales'' ( ECO) began broadcasting as the first 24-hour Spanish-language news network, with operations centers in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, and

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

. However, Zabludovsky eventually returned to Mexico following conflicts with the system's workers and reporters, who accused him of bias and adherence to Mexican government censorship. The project remained on air until 2001, when

canceled it due to low profitability.

Criticisms

The program's editorial stance was criticized for being pro-government, aligning with the Mexican government's communication policies, and reflecting the views of Televisa's owner,

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

. In an interview, Azcárraga referred to his company as a "soldier" serving the then-ruling

Institutional Revolutionary Party The Institutional Revolutionary Party (, , PRI) is a List of political parties in Mexico, political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 as the National Revolutionary Party (, PNR), then as the Party of the Mexican Revolution (, PRM) and fin ...

(PRI) and the Mexican president,

Ernesto Zedillo Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León (; born 27 December 1951) is a Mexican economist and politician. He was the 61st president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted 71-year line of Mexican presidents from the Institutional Re ...

. The newscast was viewed by the opposition and the independent press as an obstacle to the establishment of

democracy in Mexico Democracy in Mexico dates to the establishment of the federal republic of Mexico in 1824. After a long history under the Spanish Empire (1521–1821), Mexico gained its independence in 1821 and became the First Mexican Empire led by royalist ...

. Its pronounced pro-government bias, lack of plurality, servility to the presidential figure, and frequent attacks on government opponents led to several citizen boycotts during the 1980s.

Decline and end

In response to these criticisms, along with the introduction of limited freedom of expression on certain restricted television channels, significant changes occurred in the Mexican media landscape. The sale of

TV Azteca Televisión Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V., commonly known as TV Azteca, 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 so ...

in 1993 and the appointment of Emilio Azcárraga Jean as president of Televisa in 1997 brought a renewed vision aimed at modernizing and adapting the network's news programming to contemporary times. As part of this transformation, the decision was made to discontinue ''24 Horas'' in favor of the newly established news division, ''Noticieros Televisa''. The final broadcast of ''24 Horas'' featured a retrospective on its legacy, highlighting landmark news moments that defined an "era," along with a farewell celebration to mark the end of its run. Later, Jacobo Zabludovsky transitioned to a new phase in radio journalism, working primarily with networks such as Radio Red and others outside the Televisa group. Despite this, he occasionally served as an advisor to ''

Noticieros Televisa Noticieros Televisa, also branded as N+ (read as , ), is the news agency of Tritón Comunicaciones, which produces national and local news broadcasting bulletins for TelevisaUnivision's Mexican networks. It was headed by Leopoldo Gómez, vice ...

''. Over the course of his career, he received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to journalism.

Noticieros Televisa

After the end of the almost uninterrupted broadcast of the 24 Horas newscast, the successors of this newscast were specially prepared by this new news division. The first was conducted by the reporter who previously hosted the morning newscast Al Despertar, who collaborated sporadically with 24 Horas,

Guillermo Ortega Ruiz Guillermo Ortega Ruiz (born February 15, 1955, in Mexico City) is a Mexican journalist. He was Televisa Nightly News Anchor. Biography Son of Benjamin Ortega Hernandez also a journalist and Guillermina Ruiz Marcos. He studied journalism at the S ...

. However, some time later and already at the beginning of the new century, a second restructuring was carried out, and Joaquín López-Dóriga was assigned to this night news space, who occupied that place from April 2000 to August 2016, and was replaced in that space by the journalist

Denise Maerker Denise Maerker Salmón (born January 8, 1965, in Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican journalist who anchored the flagship ''En punto'', the nightly newscast for Televisa from 2016 to 2023, and has served on the company's Board of Directors since ...

Journalists and collaborators

Many renowned Mexican journalists and newsreaders began their careers on this show, including: *

† * Joaquín López-Dóriga * Ricardo Rocha Reynaga * Juan Ruiz Healy * Lolita Ayala * Heriberto Murrieta * Fernando Schwartz *

* Abraham Zabludovsky Nerubay * Juan Manuel Damián

Journalists

* Graciela Leal * Luis Aguilar Chávez† * Salvador Estrada * Guillermo Pérez Verduzco† * Fernando Alcalá * Juan Manuel Rentería * Patricia Donneaud * Norma Meraz * Félix Cortés Camarillo * Gregorio Meraz * Guillermo Herrera * Rita Ganem† *

Laura Padilla Laura may refer to: People and fictional characters * Laura (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters with the name * Laura, muse of Petrarch's poetry * Laura, the British code name for the World War I Belgian spy Marthe Cno ...

Agustín Granados Agustín is a Spanish given name and sometimes a surname. It is related to Augustín. People with the name include: Given name * Agustín Adorni (born 1990), Argentine footballer * Agustín Allione (born 1994), Argentine footballer * Ag ...

* Ana Cristina Peláez *

Juan José Prado ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of '' John''. The name is of Hebrew origin and has the meaning "God has been gracious." It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking countries around the world and in the Phili ...

Juan Francisco Castañeda ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. The name is of Hebrew origin and has the meaning "God has been gracious." It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking countries around the world and in the Philippi ...

* Francisco Ramírez * Fernando del Monte Ceceña * Magdalena García de León * Philippe Bac * Amador Narcia * Rocío Villagarcía * Laura Martínez Alarcón * Rafael Vieyra Matouk * Virginia Sendel-Lemaitre * Martha Venegas * Helen Sztrigler * Cynthia Lara * Ma. Cristina Espinoza * Julieta Berganza * Silvia Lemus * Maxine Woodside * Talina Fernández * Martha Renero * Francisco Patiño * Elda Sánchez Gaytán * Alejandro Llano * José María Rebolledo * Salvador Carrillo Martínez * Rocío González Trápaga * Raúl René Trujillo * Ricardo Peña Navarrete * Héctor Jaime Mendoza * Primitivo López * Juan Sebastián Solís * Susana Solís

Correspondents

* Valentina Alazraki (Italy and the Vatican) * Philippe Bac (Canada and France) * Félix Cortés Schöler (Germany) * Ignacio Espinoza (Miami-USA) * Jesús Hermida (Washington) * Federico Knoblauch (Germany) * Mario Lechuga (Texas-USA) * María Almendra McBride * Marcelo Luis Ojeda (Argentina) *

Alberto Peláez Alberto Peláez (born 22 February 1964 in Madrid, Spain) is a war journalist, writer and correspondent, currently working as chief correspondent of the news of Televisa in Spain. Career path Alberto Peláez is the son of journalist and communic ...

(Spain) * Joaquín Peláez * María Elena Rico (Soviet Union/Russia) * Horacio Rocha Staines (Great Britain) * Eva Usi (Germany) * Erica Vexler (Israel) * Ariel Roffe (Israel) * Kassia Wyderko (Yugoslavia) * Marissa Céspedes (New York) * José Luis Belmar (Sweden) After the final broadcast of ''24 Horas'', most of the correspondents continued their work on Televisa's new global news program, ''Noticieros Televisa'', including Alazraki, Belmar, Céspedes, Pelaez, and Wyderko. Later, some correspondents were replaced.

References

{{reflist Mexican television news shows 1970 Mexican television series debuts 1998 Mexican television series endings 1970s Mexican television series 1980s Mexican television series 1990s Mexican television series Televisa original programming Las Estrellas original programming