Radio stations from Culiacán, Sinaloa

If you grew up in Culiacán or your family did, the sound of Sinaloan radio needs no introduction. It is banda horns, morning show chatter, romantic ballads at midnight, and the particular energy of a city that takes its music seriously. For the hundreds of thousands of sinaloenses living in the United States, tuning back in is one small way of keeping home close.

This guide walks through the story of radio in Culiacán as told by its actual stations, gives you a practical map of what to listen to today, and explains how to handle the time difference when you stream from places like Los Angeles, Chicago, or Dallas.

A City of Sixteen Live Stations

The Radio en Vivo catalog currently lists 16 live stations broadcasting from Culiacán, out of 67 total stations across the state of Sinaloa. That is a healthy number for a mid-sized Mexican city, and it reflects a competitive market where several national radio groups — Grupo ACIR, MVS Radio affiliates, and Grupo Radiorama among them — operate alongside local and social-service broadcasters.

Before diving into individual stations, here is the quick landscape of what Culiacán listens to, based on what is actually on the dial in our catalog:

• Pop Latino and current hits — 12 stations, the dominant sound
• Rock en Español — 5 stations
• Regional Mexicano — 4 stations
• Banda — 4 stations
• Noticias and talk — 3 stations
• Clásicos and retro — 3 stations
• Románticas and baladas — 1 station

Pop with a regional backbone: that is Culiacán in a nutshell. Now let's look at how the dial got this way, station by station, in the order they appeared.

The Story Starts on AM: XESA, 1941

The oldest thread in Culiacán's radio history belongs to what is today Exa FM 101.7. Its origins go back to XESA-AM, which received its concession on June 6, 1941, when it was owned by Pablos y Elizalde, S. de R.L. and transmitted on 1360 kHz. That makes it one of the genuinely old stations of northwest Mexico, born in an era when radio was still the primary mass medium of the country.

In 1971, Operadora de Radio de Culiacán, S.A. bought XESA and moved it to 1260 kHz, boosting its power from 1,000 to 5,000 watts — a serious upgrade that extended its reach across the Culiacán valley. The station eventually migrated to the FM band in 2011, becoming XHESA-FM 101.7. Today it carries the Exa FM pop format from MVS Radio and is owned by Radiosistema del Noroeste.

If you want a sense of continuity, this is it: a frequency that has been serving Culiacán listeners for over eight decades, now playing pop hits for your kids while its AM signal once played the music of your grandparents.

The FM Boom of the Late 1980s and 1990s

FM radio in Mexico expanded dramatically in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, and Culiacán's dial reflects that boom.

La Plakosa 95.3 — 1988

95.3 La Plakosa received its concession on November 28, 1988. The station, broadcasting as XHIN-FM, is owned by Grupo Radiorama and operated by TM Medios y Radio S.A. de C.V. Today it runs a grupera format — the polka-tinged, accordion-and-bajo-sexto sound that is a staple of northern Mexican radio. For listeners who want that working-class, dance-hall energy rather than the brass-heavy banda sound, La Plakosa is the go-to.

XHCNA — 1980, and its many transformations

Actually, the next-oldest station in our records predates La Plakosa. 100.1 Match broadcasts as XHCNA-FM and received its concession on October 1, 1980. It was founded by Leonardo Julián López Saínz Puga, and by the 1990s it already belonged to Grupo ACIR.

XHCNA's subsequent history is a neat snapshot of how Mexican radio formats churned over three decades. On September 29, 2014, the frequency debuted Radio Disney Culiacán, which kept the pop format but replaced ACIR's own "Digital" brand with the Disney machine — a big deal for any family with teenagers at the time. Then, on December 26, 2019, Disney and ACIR mutually announced the end of their relationship, which had spanned twelve Mexican cities. Ten of those twelve Radio Disney stations, including XHCNA, switched to ACIR's replacement pop format: Match. So if you listened to Radio Disney in Culiacán in 2018 and wonder where that station went, it is still there — it just goes by Match now, playing what ACIR describes as hot adult contemporary.

Romántica 89.5 — an AM migrant with a personality change

89.5 Romántica has its roots in XECSI-AM 750, which received its concession on March 15, 1991, operating with 1,000 watts by day and just 250 watts at night — typical of the era's AM power restrictions. In 2010, XECSI migrated to FM as XHCSI-FM 89.5, part of the nationwide AM-to-FM migration that reshaped Mexican radio in the 2010s.

The station's format history has twists. Between 2012 and 2015, XHCSI-FM was known as Éxtasis Digital, playing English-language classics. It later switched to its current romantic format, and it is today the only exclusively romantic station in our Culiacán catalog — the place for baladas when the night calls for them. The station, owned by Grupo Radiorama and operated by TM Medios y Radio, also went through a regulatory chapter: a 2014 continuity obligation was applied to it, but a 2018 IFT study determined that other stations already served all listeners within its old AM coverage area.

La Comadre 98.5 — 1992

LA COMADRE 98.5 received its concession on December 4, 1992, and was previously owned by María de Lourdes Palacios Andrade. Today it carries the Regional Mexican "La Comadre" format and belongs to Grupo ACIR. It is also, notably, one of the most-listened-to stations from Culiacán in our directory — proof that regional Mexican music remains the emotional core of the city's radio even as pop dominates the raw station count.

The Newest Voice: Óscar 90.1, 2017

Radio in Sinaloa is not only about the big groups. OSCAR 90.1 broadcasts from La Cruz de Elota, just outside Culiacán proper, and listed under the Culiacán market. It is a non-commercial social-service station, owned by Radio Agricultores del Valle de Sinaloa, A.C. and operated by GPM Grupo Promedios — the same company that runs the local cable system in La Cruz.

The station went on air on May 11, 2017, after receiving its concession the previous year. It originally launched under the name "Yess FM" but changed to "Óscar" within its first year, and that is the name it keeps today. Stations like Óscar represent the newest chapter of Mexican radio: community-oriented, non-commercial, and locally rooted in ways the big networks are not.

The Stations to Know Today

Based on listening patterns in our directory, these are the Culiacán stations people in the US stream most:

• LA COMADRE 98.5 — Regional Mexican, Grupo ACIR. The heavyweight.
• EXA FM 101.7 — pop, with a lineage back to 1941.
• NRGY 88.1 — a younger-skewing favorite.
• 95.3 La Plakosa — grupera.
• 89.5 Romántica — baladas and romantic classics.
• 100.1 Match — hot adult contemporary, formerly Radio Disney.
• CLN 100.9 La Plebona — another regional favorite on the dial.

A practical tip: several of these stations appear in the catalog under slightly different name variations — for example, Exa FM Culiacán and EXA FM 101.7 both point to the same station. The same goes for 98.5 La Comadre and 88.1 NRGY. If one stream does not load, try the alternate entry — they sometimes point to different stream sources.

What to Listen to, and When

Mexican radio programming follows a fairly consistent daily rhythm, and knowing it helps you time your listening from abroad:

• Morning (6–10 a.m. Culiacán time): the big talk-and-music morning shows, with news, comedy bits, and listener calls. This is when stations like Exa FM and La Comadre are at their most local and chatty.
• Midday: music-heavy blocks, ideal for background listening at work.
• Afternoon drive (4–7 p.m.): high-energy music, contests, and show promos.
• Evening and night: this is when 89.5 Romántica earns its keep — baladas and dedications. Banda and grupera stations also lean into longer music blocks.

For Spanish-language news from a Mexican perspective, the news and talk stations in the catalog carry national network programming that keeps you current on both Mexican and border-region affairs.

How to Listen from the US, and the Time Difference

All 16 Culiacán stations in the Sinaloa section stream live right here on Radio en Vivo — no app downloads or Mexican VPN tricks needed. Just pick a station and press play.

Sinaloa lives in the Zona Pacífico time zone, which lines up neatly with US Mountain Time. That means:

• Same clock as Phoenix and Denver year-round (Arizona does not observe DST, and neither does most of Sonora, so Sinaloa matches Arizona exactly).
• One hour behind Central Time (Chicago, Dallas, Mexico City) — except during the weeks when the US and Mexico change daylight saving on different dates, when the gap can briefly become two hours. Culiacán itself stays on Mountain Standard Time year-round since Mexico largely dropped DST.
• Two hours behind Eastern Time (New York, Miami).

Practically: if you are in Los Angeles (Pacific Time), Culiacán is one hour ahead. Morning shows in Culiacán start around 6 a.m. local, which is 5 a.m. in LA — so West Coast listeners catch the tail end of morning radio during their own commute, and the afternoon drive in Culiacán lands right at lunchtime. East Coast listeners get Culiacán's evening programming during their own afternoon, which is perfect for the romantic block.

Beyond Culiacán: Nearby Radio to Explore

If you work through all sixteen Culiacán streams and want more, the natural next stop is the rest of Sinaloa, with 67 stations including the important radio market of Mazatlán. From there, regional curiosity tends to lead listeners north and east:

• Chihuahua — 54 stations, northern radio culture at its purest.
• Guadalajara, Jalisco — 59 stations in Mexico's second-biggest radio market.
• Monterrey, Nuevo León — 52 stations, a powerhouse of norteño and business radio.
• Veracruz — 44 stations and a completely different musical heritage on the Gulf coast.
• And of course Mexico City, with 350 stations — the largest radio market in the Spanish-speaking world.

Keeping the Sound of Home

What makes Culiacán's radio story worth telling is how much history fits into sixteen frequencies. One station traces its roots to a 1941 AM concession; another launched in 2017 as a social-service project in a small town nearby; several carry the scars and reinventions of the AM-to-FM migration and the Radio Disney era. Put them together and you have eight decades of a city talking, singing, and dancing to itself.

Wherever you are in the United States, that dial is one click away. Start with La Comadre if you want the sound most sinaloenses consider home, Exa FM if you want today's hits, and Romántica 89.5 when the evening calls for something softer. And if your hometown station is not on this list, the full Mexico catalog is worth a slow scroll — home radio has a way of hiding in unexpected frequencies.