Two New, Nationwide TV Channels Awarded in Mexico

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MEXICO CITY – Grupo Radio Centro and Cadena Tres have been awarded licenses for two new nationwide, free-to-air digital TV channels in Mexico, the president of the IFT telecommunications regulator said.

In a process aimed at ending the duopoly of Mexico’s No. 1 broadcaster Televisa and smaller rival TV Azteca, Grupo Radio Centro obtained a perfect score and Cadena Tres received 83.64 points out of a possible 100, Gabriel Contreras said Wednesday.

Those companies were the only two bidders. A third bidder, Centro de Informacion Nacional de Estudios Tepeyac – part of the media empire of Mario Vazquez Raña, who died in February – withdrew from the process in February.

Radio Centro bid 3 billion pesos ($197.7 million) and Cadena Tres 1.8 billion pesos ($116.9 million), while both offered to provide service to 106 million inhabitants, or roughly 94 percent of the population.

The concessions run for 20 years.

The new networks are part of a broadcast TV overhaul aimed at opening up a sector dominated by Televisa and TV Azteca, which together control nearly all of Mexico’s broadcast television market.

The IFT was created as part of that same overhaul, which was proposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration and approved in 2013.

The overhaul established, among other things, that dominant operators in any sector will be subject to asymmetric regulation to avoid market distortion.

Televisa was declared a dominant operator in the broadcast television industry in March 2014.