In 1940, Mexico had ninety commercial and twelve government radio stations and an estimated
450,000 radio sets. Radio had a nationwide cultural influence and served to popularize dances such as the samba and the rumba that had become popular in Mexico City. By 1960, there were more than 3 million radios, five or six times the number of TV sets. In 1961, radio accounted for 36 percent of the $120 million spent on advertising in Mexico, while television accounted for only 6 percent.288
Radio reached its zenith about 1970, when there were 17 million sets. Station ownership was highly concentrated, as nine groups controlled 70 percent of the stations. Even though the law restricted station ownership to Mexicans, radio paved the way for increased foreign influence. A 1971 study found that 84 percent of the products advertised on XEW, one of the most influential radio stations, were produced by foreign-controlled firms.289
In 1948, before television broadcasting began in Mexico, President Aleman decided that Mexican TV would be privately owned and financed by ad sales, as in the United States, rather than being publicly financed as was the British Broadcasting Company. In 1950, he awarded the first broadcast license to his close confidant Romulo O’Farrill. The newly licensed station, XHTV, which was the first full-time TV station in Latin America, began its initial broadcast with Aleman’s 1950 state of the nation speech.290
The next year radio tycoon Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta launched another station, XEW-TV. Four years later, O’Farril and Azcarraga concluded that the middle class was still not large enough to support competing television networks, so they merged their two fledgling networks with the one other private station, forming a monopoly, despite the prohibition on monopolies contained in Article 28 of the Mexican constitution.291
The merger created Telesistema Mexicano, which, by 1959, was operating twenty stations. This monopoly faithfully served presidents Ruiz Cortines, Lopez Mateos, and Diaz Ordaz by supporting the government. These presidents in turn favored the existing TV monopoly.292
By 1968, television had replaced radio as the main source of home entertainment and had surpassed radio in ad sales. Telesistema Mexicano kept its profits high by establishing a company union that depressed wages. The absence of a rival network that might compete with Telesistema for talent also contributed to its profitability. The medium proved to be so lucrative that Azcarraga was able to purchase a TV station in San Antonio, Texas, that developed into the Spanish-language U. S. network, Univision.293
Under Azcarraga’s direction, Telesistema pioneered live intercontinental transmission of sporting events. The program “Siempre en Domingo” became the most influential music show in the Spanish-speaking world. Mexico City, the nerve center of Telesistema operations, drew actors from throughout Latin America seeking jobs and the opportunity to work with the latest technology. As Claudia Fernandez and Andrew Paxman observed in their book on Azcarraga: “By the end of the 1960s, Mexico City was without a doubt the capital of Spanish-language television. It was the most prolific producer, the biggest exporter of programs, and the Mecca for talent.”294
Just as with radio, the law restricted the ownership of TV stations to Mexican citizens. However, in 1976, foreign ad agencies, mainly U. S.-owned, handled 70 percent of the value of all advertising. Even ad agencies not owned by foreigners largely produced ads for products made by foreign corporations. U. S. corporations dominated the production of such heavily advertised products as autos, detergents, food, cosmetics, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and soft drinks. TV commercials promoted cigarettes, perfumes, alcoholic beverages, luxury cars, and shopping trips to San Antonio, Texas. As they were designed to do, they shaped tastes. White bread and soft drinks became a high priority even in the poorest villages since they were believed to be a key to good health.295
Even though there was no formal mechanism of censorship, as there was with movies, concentrated media ownership stifled diversity of opinion. Advertisers’ opinions and interests shaped content. The government—upon which stations relied for licenses and ads—openly pressured Telesistema Mexicano to minimize coverage of the 1968 student movement. As a result, as Octavio Paz observed in 1975:
Freedom of the press is more a formality than a reality; radio and television are in the hands of
Two or three families who are more interested in earning money by brutalizing the audience
Than in analyzing the country’s problems honestly and objectively.296
World History
