| |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Greater Mexico City |
| Frequency | 690 AM |
| Branding | El Fonógrafo |
| Programming | |
| Format | Spanishadult hits |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| XHRED-FM,XHFAJ-FM,XEJP-FM,XEQR-FM,XERC-AM,XEQR-AM,XERED-AM,XEJP-AM | |
| History | |
First air date | 1925 |
| Technical information | |
| Class | B |
| Power | 100,000watts (day) 5,000watts (night)[1] |
Transmitter coordinates | 19°19′59.3″N98°59′18.1″W / 19.333139°N 98.988361°W /19.333139; -98.988361 |
| Links | |
| Webcast | Listen live |
| Website | elfonografo.mx |
XEN-AM (branded asEl Fonógrafo) is acommercialradio station inMexico City. It airs a Spanish-languageadult hits format on 690kHz. The station is owned byGrupo Radio Centro.
XEN broadcasts with 100,000watts by day. But to avoid interfering with other stations onAM 690, it reduces power at night to 5,000 watts. Thetransmitter is in the San Miguel Teotongo neighborhood in Mexico City.[2]
690 AM is a Mexican and Canadianclear-channel frequency;CKGM andXEWW shareClass A status of this frequency.
XEN-AM started asCYS, on 710 kHz. The station was owned byGeneral Electric Mexico from 1925 to 1930.
For most of 1930, from February 5 to the end of the year, the station, by then known as "Radio Mundial XEN" and bearing its currentcall sign, offered something never before provided on radio: a constantall news radio service. Radio Noticias was owned byFélix Palavicini [es], a journalist who acquired the station at the start of the year.
The earliest concession for XEN-AM was awarded to Cervecería Modelo, S.A., in 1934. At that time the station still broadcast on 710 kHz. The next year, the station was transferred to Guillermina Pontones de del Conde, and later it moved to its current dial position on 690 kHz.
Beginning in the 1950s and until the early 1990s, it carried aworld music format asRadio Mundo. In 1993, the station switched to asports radio format asRadio Sportiva.
By the late 1990s it offered lounge music and newscasts under the nameOndas del Lago.[3]
In 2001, Grupo Radio Centro bought the indebted station, disaffiliated it from the Cadena RASA system and converted it to a news format, known as La 69 - Es Noticia. The purchase was made possible because the previous year Radio Centro had sold1320 AM and1560 AM to Infored.[4] However, the station generally lacked unique programming. It mainly aired a simulcast of the two-hour midday newscast of Radio Red, which was hosted byJacobo Zabludovsky until his death on July 2, 2015, being substituted by Juan Francisco Castañeda. The newscast originated on XEN, before moving to Radio Red in 2004.
The newscast was recorded and repeated throughout the day and on weekends. Another program, a seven-hour morning talk show, "¿Y usted, qué opina?" hosted byNino Canún, was cancelled in August 2014. The station's only original programming on its final years were cultural capsules aired during commercial breaks, having no advertisers outside of government and electoral spots.
In 2017, citing "changes in AM transmission infrastructure," Grupo Radio Centro reorganized all of its AM radio stations. It shut down several stations and consolidated their programs. La 69 was replaced by content from the formerXEQR-AM 1030, talk-formatted Radio Centro, andXEJP-AM 1150, Spanish oldies El Fonógrafo.
Radio Centro's sole program to transition to XEN, "Buenos Días con Héctor Martínez Serrano" aired daily from 5:30 to 10:00am, with El Fonógrafo's musical programming filling in the rest of the air time (except for Sundays at noon, when Catholic mass was aired). From 2019 to 2022, the station was also occasionally used as an overflow to broadcast soccer matches fromLiga MX as well as theUEFA Champions League. Besides airing on XEN, El Fonógrafo also maintains a separate stream solely dedicated to music without announcers or commercial interruptions, which could also be heard on the HD2 subchannel ofXEJP-FM until 2020. Martínez Serrano died on May 9, 2020, with his son Manelic and his former collaborators taking over the hosting of "Buenos Días".
Beginning on May 18, 2020, XEN began to be simulcasted onXEQR-AM, ending on June 18, 2022, when the latter rebranded as a sports talk station. Following the August 2023 relaunch of XEQR as an oldies and standards station (similar to El Fonógrafo's original format), "Buenos Días" returned to that frequency and XEN became an all-music station again for the first time since its "Radio Mundo" days.