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Will Donald Trump's wall block border blasters

T

Tomgsinger

Frequent Participant
I know that terrain is a major blocker of signals, With Donald Trump building a wall on the Mexican border, Tijuana, Juarez, Mexicali, etc.'s border blasters may not be able to get a signal into their primary sales markets on the opposite side of the border. This scenario gets even more intense when stations like XHTO, XHRM, XETRA and XHMIX are the only stations in their respective core sales markets (El Paso, San Diego, San Diego and Yuma-El Centro respectively) with the format they provide. Thoughts, anyone?
 
First, the wall isn't likely to be built.

Second, even if it is, no, it wouldn't impact broadcast signals. I suppose tougher border crossing regulations could make sales on the US side of the border a little more difficult, but most Mexican stations that are serious about selling here already have sales staff and production studios here.
 
Third...from what I've read, the wall is least likely to be build along the Baja Peninsula.
 
Tomgsinger said:
I know that terrain is a major blocker of signals, With Donald Trump building a wall on the Mexican border, Tijuana, Juarez, Mexicali, etc.'s border blasters may not be able to get a signal into their primary sales markets on the opposite side of the border. This scenario gets even more intense when stations like XHTO, XHRM, XETRA and XHMIX are the only stations in their respective core sales markets (El Paso, San Diego, San Diego and Yuma-El Centro respectively) with the format they provide. Thoughts, anyone?
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There is already a wall along most of the border in the San Diego area. And the wall is not as high as some of the buildings along or near the border, so it will be of no effect on FM signals which come from sites around 1000 feet above the average terrain in Tijuana.
 
Tomgsinger said:
I'm talking about the studio, programming/music/production departments, sales/advertising, everything except for the transmitter itself and the studios on their legal documents.
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But for the signal to reach the San Diego market, the transmitter for a Mexican station has to be in Mexico.
 
Tomgsinger said:
I know that terrain is a major blocker of signals, With Donald Trump building a wall on the Mexican border, Tijuana, Juarez, Mexicali, etc.'s border blasters may not be able to get a signal into their primary sales markets on the opposite side of the border. This scenario gets even more intense when stations like XHTO, XHRM, XETRA and XHMIX are the only stations in their respective core sales markets (El Paso, San Diego, San Diego and Yuma-El Centro respectively) with the format they provide. Thoughts, anyone?
Click to expand...

Terrain, as others have explained, no. But if relations between the US and Mexico hit a rough patch in a Trump presidency, Mexico could restrict access to Mexican broadcast facilities by US broadcasters. Not very likely, especially if there's dollars to the Mexican government in such an arrangement. And I know nothing about how these arrangements work, so that's the end of my speculation.
 
joebtsflk1 said:
Terrain, as others have explained, no. But if relations between the US and Mexico hit a rough patch in a Trump presidency, Mexico could restrict access to Mexican broadcast facilities by US broadcasters. Not very likely, especially if there's dollars to the Mexican government in such an arrangement. And I know nothing about how these arrangements work, so that's the end of my speculation.
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The Mexican government likes the stations that bill in dollars and pay taxes in Mexico. i doubt this would stop, as it would cost the Mexican economy money.
 
At one time, American DJs working for Mexican radio stations, broadcasting in English to San Diego, had to cross the border everyday and do their shows from studios in Mexico. There were plenty of stories about problems at the border crossing, people being detained, the DJ on duty having to do an 8, 10 or 12 hour shift when his replacement didn't arrive. Read the Wikipedia write-up on XETV Channel 6, which was an ABC affiliate in its early days. In the first few years of the affiliation, XETV had to get kinescopes of ABC programs because it couldn't air them live.

Today, that's all in the past. The transmitters of these radio and TV stations may be in Mexico, the owner may be Mexican, but a U.S. firm leases the time and the studios and offices are in San Diego. But if things get hostile between the U.S. and Mexico, who's to say these arrangements don't suffer? You might also read the Wikipedia write up on KVOS-TV Bellingham Washington. In its early days it made a lot of money broadcasting CBS shows into Vancouver. But it suffered when Canada put a big tax on advertising by Canadian companies on U.S. border stations.

Could that happen to XETV, XEPRS, XETRA-FM, XHITZ and XHRM, all successful English-language stations licensed to Mexico? Probably not... but who knows? Maybe the Trump Administration would impose taxes on advertising on these stations, as it threatens to impose tariffs on other goods made in Mexico but intended for the U.S. market?
 
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Gregg. said:
But if things get hostile between the U.S. and Mexico, who's to say these arrangements don't suffer? You might also read the Wikipedia write up on KVOS-TV Bellingham Washington. In its early days it made a lot of money broadcasting CBS shows into Vancouver. But it suffered when Canada put a big tax on advertising by Canadian companies on U.S. border stations.
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With respect to KVOS, you're fusing two separate timelines: KVOS had lost it's CBS affiliate status many years before having lost it's ability to sell across the boarder in 2000. And the reason for that, were Canadian stations and Shaw cable felt they were losing money and market share to a Bellingham/U.S. station, despite being an independent. Obviously they didn't want to admit that British Columbia TV was garbage.

First the Canadian government applied taxes and limited the amount of Canadian sales KVOS could do across the boarder, then the death blow was to order Shaw Cable to move KVOS from it's long-held Channel 12 position on cable, to something like channel 28. Annual revenue at KVOS went from $15M to less than $300K in one year.
 
It wasn't all because of Vancouver stations...KIRO had the full CBS lineup and KVOS was cherry-picking. By the 1980s all they were running was 60 Minutes from CBS and maybe a soap or game show, and by 1987 they were a full time independent station with programming beamed for a Canadian audience. I have several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on a VHS tape, taped off KVOS-12 in 1990. Except for the community calendar, practically every commercial was for a Canadian product or a Vancouver business/auto dealer.

I doubt a wall would affect reception that much. It's not made of rock and dirt. A 500-foot hill of course would screw up reception. But money-wise, foreign taxes might go up and cost these stations more money to operate. If push comes to shove, could the Mexican government donate the licenses to a US company, thereby operating with a San Diego transmitter and a KXXX callsign?
 
crainbebo said:
I doubt a wall would affect reception that much. It's not made of rock and dirt. A 500-foot hill of course would screw up reception. But money-wise, foreign taxes might go up and cost these stations more money to operate. If push comes to shove, could the Mexican government donate the licenses to a US company, thereby operating with a San Diego transmitter and a KXXX callsign?
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Even a 500 foot hill on the border would be of minimal effect on the Tijuana radio stations that are targeting the SD market. That's because the transmitters are so close to the border, and at 1000+ feet over average terrain so they would shoot right over the hill. There would, as I calculate be just minimal shadowing right at the foot of such a hill.

As BigA said, the border stations can not be moved to the US for many reasons. Some have to do with treaties, but most have to do with the inability of the stations to move any farther to the north due to separation requirements towards existing US stations. That applies to not just Tijuana, but Mexicali, San Luis Río Colorado, Cd. Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and other border locations.

In any event, México is not going to give away a national resource to an American company. In the event of some impediment to broadcasting in English, the stations would simply convert to a Spanish language format; Tijuana is one of México's top 10 markets and the stations in Spanish are all nicely profitable.
 
DavidEduardo said:
In any event, México is not going to give away a national resource to an American company. In the event of some impediment to broadcasting in English, the stations would simply convert to a Spanish language format; Tijuana is one of México's top 10 markets and the stations in Spanish are all nicely profitable.
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I want to point this out for the benefit of others here.

Until 2014, no foreign company could own even an iota of a Mexican broadcast station, at least its voting shares. It took until 2014 for foreigners to be able to enter the Mexican broadcast market, and even then, there is a reciprocity restriction: foreigners can own up to 49% depending on the foreign ownership limit in their country of origin. (You also need the approval of the National Foreign Investment Commission.)

There is something important about Mexico letting foreigners into certain protected industries. It goes against a bunch of their political culture.
 
There is the very remote possibility that the Mexican broadcasting powers that be may (SCT?) flex their muscles in retaliation to any major border policy changes...

They could say "Since there's a big ol' wall blocking off access to the US, we will not allow stations in our country to broadcast commercials for businesses in the US..." Poof! No more Tijuana stations broadcasting to the San Diego market!

That being said, the Mexican radio concessionaires know what side their bread is buttered. They'd fight, argue, and bribe their way to avoid any issues with their cash cow "border blasters". And it would be far more likely the Mexicans would prefer to retaliate by messing with US heavy industries doing business there (ex: Ford, Fiat/Chrysler, etc)

Radio-X
 
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