XHRED-FM

XHRED-FM is a radio station in Mexico City. Located on 88.1 MHz, XHRED-FM is owned by Grupo Radio Centro and broadcasts news and talk, along with music in English as "Red FM".

History

Radio Central de México, S.A., the concessionaire of XERED-AM, received a concession to operate a FM radio station in Mexico City in 1972. XHRED-FM launched in 1976, picking up a format previously heard on 1560 AM: "Radio VIP", programming and music in English. In the 1980s, the Spanish-language Monitor newscast with José Gutiérrez Vivo was added; this newscast was carried with XERED-AM.

In 1995, Radiodifusora Red—which, by this point, had grown to include XERED-AM, XHRED-FM, and XHRCA-FM 91.3 in Mexico City, as well as Radio Red repeaters in Guadalajara (XEDKR-AM 700 and XESTN-AM 1540), was sold to Grupo Radio Centro. At this time 88.1 finally adopted the "Radio Red FM" name.

For media concentration reasons, Radio Centro sold two stations (1320 AM, which became XENET-AM, and 1560 AM, which became XEINFO-AM) to Infored in 1998, with the stations relaunched in 2000. The two sides had a falling out, which in 2004 resulted in the end of the Monitor newscast on Radio Red after 30 years. Radio Centro responded by increasing XHRED-FM's effective radiated power from 43 to 95 kW and expanding its own news offerings.

Format

Radio Red's format consists of multiple longform newscasts throughout the day, featuring such hosts as Sergio Sarmiento, Jacobo Zabludovsky and Jesús Martín Mendoza. The newscasts are carried on AM and FM, but certain additional spoken programs are aired only on AM while FM carries adult contemporary and rock music in English, in blocks hosted by Isabel Angulo.

References