Las Estrellas () is a Mexican

television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

owned by

TelevisaUnivision TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American media company headquartered in Miami and Mexico City that owns American Spanish language broadcast network Univision and free-to-air channels in Mexico such as ...

. Its first official broadcast took place on 21 March 1951. It airs

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

through affiliate stations throughout Mexico, based on

XEW-TDT XEW-TDT (channel 2) is a television station in Mexico City, Mexico. The station is owned by TelevisaUnivision and is the flagship station to the Las Estrellas network. XEW is the second-oldest Televisa station and Mexico City's second-oldest s ...

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 ...

. It is considered the most-watched television channel in Mexico and serves as

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 ...

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...

channel. It is also the oldest national television network in Mexico, originating from station

XEW-TV XEW-TDT (channel 2) is a television station in Mexico City, Mexico. The station is owned by TelevisaUnivision and is the flagship station to the Las Estrellas network. XEW is the second-oldest Televisa station and Mexico City's second-oldest s ...

, the second-oldest station in the country, following

XHTV-TDT XHTV-TDT (channel 4) is a Mexican television station, serving Mexico City as the flagship relay of the N+ Foro channel. The station is owned-and-operated by locally based Grupo Televisa alongside XEW-TDT, XHGC-TDT and XEQ-TDT carrying Las E ...

(channel 4). Much of Las Estrellas' programming is broadcast in the U.S. on

Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television, 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 L ...

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-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. ...

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 20 ...

. Its programming primarily consists of

telenovelas 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 (film and television), drama genres around the w ...

game shows A game show (or gameshow) is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment where contestants compete in a game for rewards. The shows are typically directed by a host, who explains the rules of the program as well as commentating and narrating wh ...

, comedy shows, sports shows, and

news broadcasts News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or tele ...

. On weekends, it features movies,

reality shows Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

children's programming Children's television series (or children's television shows) are Television show, television programs designed specifically for Child, children. They are typically characterised by easy-going content devoid of sensitive or adult themes and are ...

, special events (concerts, award shows), and occasionally, the final episodes of major telenovelas (simulcast on the main stations of the

Televisa Regional Televisa Regional is a unit of Grupo Televisa which owns and operates television stations across Mexico. The stations rebroadcast programming from its subsidiary TelevisaUnivision's other networks, and they engage in the local production of newsca ...

network). Additionally, weekends include broadcasts of major Mexican soccer matches and, at times, boxing events.

History

Las Estrellas originated from XEW-TV, which began broadcasting on 11 March 1951. The channel was a sister station to the legendary

XEW-AM XEW-AM (900 kHz) and XEW-FM (96.9 MHz) are commercial radio stations in Mexico City, Mexico, simulcasting a news/talk radio format branded as ''W Radio''. XEW serves as the flagship for other "W Radio" stations around Mexico that carry some or ...

radio station, owned by

Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta (2 March 1895 – 23 September 1972) was a Mexican businessman, known for founding the entertainment conglomerate Telesistema Mexicano (now Televisa). Early life Azcárraga was born on 2 March 1895 in Tampico, Ta ...

, 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 (channel 4) is a Mexican television station, serving Mexico City as the flagship relay of the N+ Foro channel. The station is owned-and-operated by locally based Grupo Televisa alongside XEW-TDT, XHGC-TDT and XEQ-TDT carrying Las Estrel ...

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 Baseball League (, or LMB, ) is a professional baseball league in Mexico. It is the oldest running professional sports league in the country. The league has 20 teams organized in two divisions, North and South. Teams play 114 games ...

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 (Spanish: la Época de Oro del Cine Mexicano), spanning the 1930s to 1950s, was a prolific era during which Mexico emerged as the leading film producer in Latin America. Filmmakers during this period tackled themes ...

, 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 XHTM-TDT is a television station licensed to and broadcasting from Altzomoni, State of Mexico on virtual channel 2. Founded in 1952, it was the second television station built outside of Mexico City and the first relayer of Las Estrellas. XHTM, ...

and

Televisión Independiente de México Televisión Independiente de México (; known on air as TIM or Cadena TIM) was a Television in Mexico, Mexican national television network founded in 1965 by Eugenio Garza Sada. It operated until 1973, when it merged with its primary competitor, Te ...

, 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 The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-tea ...

(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 Her first work in television was in the telenovela “Muchacha itali ...

, in 1988. After the death of

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 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 co ...

-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 (channel 1) is the flagship station of Mexico's Azteca Uno television network, located in Mexico City. Azteca Uno can be seen in most major cities in Mexico through TV Azteca's owned-and-operated transmitter network. XHDF provides HD ...

, freshly privatized and bought under the auspicies 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 ...

. After years of decline, particularly after

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

, 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 former politician and lawyer who was the 64th president of Mexico from 2012 to 2018. A member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), he p ...

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 and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

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. Both feeds differ from the Las Estrellas programming, usually broadcasting shows weeks behind their original broadcast. The European feed was known as Galavisión until 2005 and started broadcasting in late 1988. On October 15, 2005, the channel adopted El Canal de las Estrellas, as Galavisión was associated to old movies, outdated telenovelas and sports events broadcast with delay. The rebrand enabled the channel to get up-to-date with the Latin American feed. In January 2025, satellite distribution of the feed changed from Eutelsat 9B to Intelsat 35e. In Canada, XEW-TDT and the Las Estrellas schedule is available in full on

Rogers Cable Rogers Cable is Canada's largest cable television service provider with about 2.25 million television customers, and over 930,000 Internet subscribers, primarily in Southern and Eastern Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. Roger ...

(limited to the

Greater Toronto Area The Greater Toronto Area, commonly referred to as the GTA, includes the Toronto, City of Toronto and the regional municipality, regional municipalities of Regional Municipality of Durham, Durham, Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton, Regional ...

) and

Bell Fibe TV Bell Fibe TV is an IPTV-based multichannel television service offered by Bell Canada, as part of fibre broadband services in parts of the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba (as Bell MTS Fibe TV) and Atlantic Canada (as Bell Aliant F ...

as an eligible foreign service.

Network logos

File:XEW TV Canal 2 1950 logo.PNG, 1951 logo File:XEW 1952.png, 1952 logo File:Canal 2 1970s logo.svg, 1968 logo File:El Canal de las Estrellas 1980s logo.PNG, 1988 logo File: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 (film and television), drama genres around the w ...

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