Broadcast area | Mexico City |
---|---|
Branding | Radio Centro/El Fonógrafo |
Slogan | Música Ligada a Tu Recuerdo (Music Linked to Your Memory) |
Frequency | 690 kHz 91.3 FM HD2 XHFAJ-FM |
First air date | 1925 |
Format | Talk radio/Spanish oldies |
Power | 100,000 watts (day) 5,000 watts (night) |
Class | B |
Owner | Grupo Radio Centro (Radio Sistema Mexicano, S.A.) |
Website | http://radiocentroelfonografo.com/ |
XEN-AM (branded as Radio Centro/El Fonógrafo) is a radio station based in Mexico City and airing a talk radio and Spanish oldies format on 690 kHz. The station is owned by Grupo Radio Centro.
XEN-AM can be heard in HD on XHFAJ-FM HD2.
XEN-AM started as CYS, on 710 kHz. The station was owned by General 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 current callsign, offered something never before provided on radio: a constant all-news service. Radio Noticias was owned by Félix F. Palavicini, 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 690 kHz.
Beginning in the 1950s and until the early 1990s, it carried a world music format as Radio Mundo. In 1993, the station switched to a sports format as Radio Sportiva.
By the late 1990s it offered lounge music and newscasts under the name Ondas del Lago.
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 sold 1320 AM and 1560 AM to Infored. However, the station generally lacked unique programming; only airing a simulcast of the two-hour midday newscast of Radio Red, which was hosted by Jacobo Zabludovsky until his death on July 2, 2015, being substituted by Juan Francisco Castañeda (although it originated on XEN, before moving to Radio Red in 2004), which was looped throughout the day and on weekends, and a program with José Alberto Barranco Chavarría called "Entrelíneas" that beginning July 4, 2016 was also simulcast on Radio Red. Another program, a seven-hour morning talk show, "¿Y usted, qué opina?" hosted by Nino Canún, was cancelled in August 2014. The station's only original materials after 2016 were cultural capsules aired during commercial breaks, having no advertisers outside of government and electoral spots.