What are the rules in giving the legal I.D. in Mexico? Some stations give it at the top of the hour, call letters and city. Some don't. Some give it at the bottom of the hour. And I noticed XETRA-FM Tijuana, which is an English-language station aimed at San Diego, has a recorded female voice say the call letters in Spanish but instead of the city, she gives the state's name. "XETRA-FM, Baja California, Mexico." Or at least that's what I heard a few years ago when I was in San Diego. An earlier thread discussed how "City of License" isn't something used in Mexico as it is in the U.S.
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Giving the Legal I.D. in Mexico
- Thread starter Gregg.
- Start date
Let's see if Raymie, who frequents the Phoenix board, can give us the exact and current requirement. He is an expert on all things Mexican in the areas of radio and TV and even has his own section on the WTVFDA tv and fm dx club site.
I have been summoned!
The 2014 Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law (LFTR), the current law governing all aspects of broadcasting and telecoms, gives no such requirement...
...but its predecessor, the Federal Radio and Television Law, did! (The LFRTV was replaced in 2014, so this is no longer law, but it is still custom.)
The last revision of the LFRTV, in the appropriate Article 76, reads:
"En toda transmisión de prueba o ajuste que se lleve a cabo por las estaciones, así como durante el desarrollo de los programas y en lapsos no mayores de 30 minutos, deberán expresarse en español las letras nominales que caracterizan a la estación, seguidas del nombre de la localidad en que esté instalada."
or translated
"In any test transmissions that stations carry out, as well as during programs and at least every 30 minutes, the call letters assigned to the station must be expressed in Spanish, followed by the name of the locality in which the station is installed."
Stations tend to have long IDs in Mexico — often including such details as their power, ownership and location of their studios and transmitter (30 seconds is a common duration). I've located the transmitter of at least one station using a DXer's aircheck of their ID.
The bare minimum ID would go something like "XHMD-FM, León, Guanajuato" —*like an FCC legal ID. But those are rare.
And the ones Tijuana border blasters like that say "Baja California, México" are technically incomplete — they don't give a locality, just a state. BCA does this correctly on its AMs ("XEPE 1700 AM, Tecate, Baja California") but not on XHPRS-FM 105.7.
———
Also, a special mention has to be given here that there are FMs utterly incapable of getting their callsign right. Usually, this is because the station is an AM-FM migrant. Particular examples I know of are XHEOA, XHECPQ, and XHEPQ. I've heard airchecks from the first two and seen materials from the third in which the E is missing.
Each of these is truly special in some form. XHEOA ("XHOA") does not have the XHOA-FM callsign because that used to be the callsign of XHOAX-FM prior to a permit discontinuity that prompted new callsigns for every single FM station (33 of them) owned by the government of Oaxaca. XHECPQ doesn't have XHCPQ because that's the callsign of an allotment, in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo (there are allotments with callsigns in Mexico, wildly enough —*some date to 2000 and have been protected by callsigns like XHEVAB, XHECPQ and XHERIO). XHEPQ doesn't have XHPQ because, unlike the SCT in 1994, Cofetel avoided many duplications of callsigns to existing stations (there's an XHPQ-FM in León, Guanajuato).
Thank you! That is a marvelous and detailed explanation.
So you are saying that, if the new law does not require identification, stations are doing it out of habit or preference?
I always wondered about the ones with lengthy ID's that included the name of the building,t he street address, the colonia, the city and the state and, of course, "México" at the end. I could never see why or how the audience might even care about that!
I loved the traditional "X...E...W. La Voz de la América Latina desde México". What more could you want?
P.S. Do you have a final count of how many AM stations moved to FM and returned the license for AM, as well as a count for those that were allowed to add an FM while keeping the AM to serve areas the FM might not cover? The last count on the total moves I heard, which was from Carlos Aguirre about 3 years ago, was 585.
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The thing is that all this stuff still carries some weight. I'm sure stations are still expected to ID, but it's certainly not in the LFTR! This was enforced by the RTC anyway. I found one reference to some admonishments/observations issued to stations for "omitting the station ID". But the RTC has generally gone soft and hasn't nailed anyone about it for four years.
As to David's question about AM-FM migrants...
My count, based on the March 2016 IFT tables:
-451 stations that have concluded their migration
-75 stations that are stuck with their AMs for now (or until other radio services are available in every community where the AM is the last available station)
minus
-XERY Arcelia Gro., which renounced its AM-FM migration concession (potentially alongside sister XEXY Cd. Altamirano)
and also there are
-83 combos authorized by the SCT in 1994 that are permanent AM-FM combos
As to David's question about AM-FM migrants...
My count, based on the March 2016 IFT tables:
-451 stations that have concluded their migration
-75 stations that are stuck with their AMs for now (or until other radio services are available in every community where the AM is the last available station)
minus
-XERY Arcelia Gro., which renounced its AM-FM migration concession (potentially alongside sister XEXY Cd. Altamirano)
and also there are
-83 combos authorized by the SCT in 1994 that are permanent AM-FM combos
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Thanks for the info! So Mexico goes from requiring the legal I.D. every 30 minutes, to a new agency not specifying any schedule for legal I.D.s. Interesting that in Mexico, the government is willing to let AM radio die everywhere except the largest cities and along the U.S. border. While in the U.S., the FCC is still trying to keep AM active. We'll see what happens with the Trump Administration FCC. But there has been no large scale switch of AM stations to FM that we've seen in Mexico and Canada.
Look at WFAN in NYC, where CBS has put the sports programming on FM but keeps its simulcast with 660 AM, so its 50,000 watt signal can serve the farther suburbs. CBS does the same with All-News stations in Chicago and San Francisco. Meanwhile plenty of Mexican AMs have left the air, even some of the Class A stations. Is 540 XEWA San Luis Potosi's 150,000 watt transmitter still on the air, one of the most powerful in North America? There's been speculation its been either downgraded or turned off.
Look at WFAN in NYC, where CBS has put the sports programming on FM but keeps its simulcast with 660 AM, so its 50,000 watt signal can serve the farther suburbs. CBS does the same with All-News stations in Chicago and San Francisco. Meanwhile plenty of Mexican AMs have left the air, even some of the Class A stations. Is 540 XEWA San Luis Potosi's 150,000 watt transmitter still on the air, one of the most powerful in North America? There's been speculation its been either downgraded or turned off.
When Mexico legislated to create a path for about 500 or so AMs to switch to AM or add an AM (see the numbers in Raymie's post) their legislative body declared that AM was of limited viability and a path to save the investments and the jobs had to be created.
They later modified the position via administrative decisions when they realized that rural services, particularly ones in indigenous languages, were better achieved on AM. And then they saw that some broad coverage AM stations that would be replaced with more limited FMs would leave big rural areas with less or no service, so they required or allowed the AM to survive in an AM/FM simulcast.
Now they are authorizing some new AMs, mostly to serve rural and / or indigenous population zones. In Mexico there are over 100 indigenous languages and dialects, spoken by about 8% of the population.
Raymie can give more details. My source is a luncheon conversation with two directors of the CIRT, the Mexican equivalent of the US NAB radio broadcaster group.
In much of Latin America, calls are not used at all, or minimally. Stations are registered under the station name, not the call letters. My favorite anecdote is while working for Emmis' stations in Argentina, some US supplier needed call letters for a contract. We did not know them, and a call to the government FCC-equivalent got a "we don't know, but we can look it up". It took two days for them to find the data and get back to us.
Raymie, paging Raymie!
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Not to mention it wanted more stations to be able to use IBOC or go digital down the road.
XEWA/SLP is still on the air because of what I call the "last radio service" rule. Stations cannot shut off on AM if there are communities in the AM service area that receive no other radio station. This was the case for XEWA, especially given its clear channel status — ten municipalities in five states, in fact. XERF is under the same rule.
There is going to be a second round of AM-FM migration now that 400 kHz station spacing is possible. Some 47 stations will get to move. The real winners on that one are in a few border cities, Guadalajara and Puebla. Mexico City only has two available frequencies, and one will go to a public broadcaster so just one commercial station will get the nod. The kicker? New-round migrants are required to use IBOC!
That said, the CDI has had to fully migrate a few stations —*XHTUMI comes to mind. The first new AM I saw authorized in years is in Chiapas (the callsign is XERAM-AM) and it was given the green light after a decade of waiting for a permit — it had waited so long that the era of permits was over!
Not quite. The constitutional reform in 2013 led to the change in agency. The replacement of the LFRTV with the LFTR in 2014 led to the formal dropping of the ID requirement. I imagine that was not an expected consequence or a simple oversight.
K
kf4rca
Guest
SO, if they sometimes use names and sometimes do not, how do you tell the pirates from the legal ones?
The reason the US FCC wants to keep AM alive is for the license fee$.
The reason the US FCC wants to keep AM alive is for the license fee$.
Have you come across any change in the ID requirements or noted any major trends on air in the way both radio and TV stations identify?
In my monitoring of the Mexicali, BCN, stations I note that the long IDs with even the street address are gone from most stations and in some cases, a whole hour of listening shows not ID with the call letters... just the name.
Of course, in much of Latin America, ID by name is the legal requirement and call letters are seldom if at all used.
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Funny you ask...
I ran across a document from the Consejo Consultivo of the IFT, issued in March, that said that the IFT should to adopt guidelines for station IDs. Their recommendation suggested an hourly ID, mentioning digital channels if necessary, as well as incorporating definitions of "call sign" into the technical guidelines for radio.
XHPVAT-FM, the first new IFT-4 station, does not have a long ID. It, however, is an ex-pirate, and apparently that's kind of a thing for them. I have not yet had a chance to listen to the other IFT-4 grantees on the air, the new Guachochi radio stations — they are not streaming.
Of course, Mexicali is a border market, so its stations are going to be influenced more by American practice than a station in Durango, Veracruz or Tapachula.
It's frightening to think that a station in relatively large Mexicali would be influenced by a station in Calexico or El Centro!
K
kf4rca
Guest
So, whether or not a station is a pirate or not is not a problem, at least, until they start cutting in to a legal station's ad revenue stream. Then they get a cartel to "take them out."
"Cofetel avoided many duplications of callsigns to existing stations (there's an XHPQ-FM in León, Guanajuato)." Is that anything like "covfefe"?
Yes, but only if Tweeted by the President of Mexico.
"Cofetel avoided many duplications of callsigns to existing stations (there's an XHPQ-FM in León, Guanajuato)." Is that anything like "covfefe"?
COmisión FEderal de TELecomunicaciones. It was replaced with the IFT in 2013. The IFT has additional autonomy and powers.
Pirates do get shut down. There's also currently a bill in the Chamber of Deputies that would stiffen penalties for pirate broadcasting and prevent pirates from applying for radio station concessions for five years. Because community and indigenous stations take the brunt of it, that's kind of a bad thing, though some regions of the country (Oaxaca, looking at you) are absolutely crawling with unlicensed radio stations.
Boy does he not like Trump! Have you seen his videos? We return you now to your regularly scheduled thread.
There's not much Mexicans can like Peña Nieto for except standing up to Trump.
I'm reminded of a PSA Nueva Alianza was running last year that attacked Trump by name. When it was translated for XEPE/XEPRS/XHPRS (I believe the station does the translation on its own — they do not expend a lot of effort on these), the script was changed to mention "a certain presidential candidate".
Then again, this case may show that they are looking to avoid letters from angry listeners in a situation where their hands are absolutely tied. A Morena PSA that slammed the purchase of a new presidential plane was edited to drop the line "not even Obama has one".
Aside from adding "in Mexico" or "Mexican" where needed, or having to state the names of party leaders, politicians and others in place of their voices, this was the biggest edit I've ever noticed to one.
On the other hand, my 25-volume set of these translated PSAs includes more mispronunciations than you can shake a stick at, really awkward translations, errors like "morality rate" and "elections for majors", and often terms that get lost in translation. For instance, a PRD ad made mention of "white houses", which refers to a specific political scandal involving the president. For someone like me, they are guaranteed to make me chuckle.
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