Radio stations from Puebla

Puebla is one of Mexico's great radio cities, and not just because of its size. The Angelopolis has been on the air for more than eight decades, and its dial tells a story of family-owned broadcasters, national chains, AM-to-FM migrations, and format battles that mirror the whole country's radio history. If you grew up in Puebla, or your parents did, this guide walks you through that story and helps you find your stations again from the United States.

Our Puebla directory currently lists 28 live stations from the city and surrounding towns like Atlixco, Tehuacán, Huauchinango, Ciudad Serdán and San Martín Texmelucan. Here's how to make the most of them.

A Short History of Puebla Radio, Told Through Three Stations

Puebla doesn't need a long abstract history lesson. Its radio story is best told through specific stations whose real trajectories connect to each other — an AM pioneer, a grupera migrant, and a news talker that took fifty years to reach FM.

XECD: The Second Station in Puebla

The story starts with La Romántica Puebla 92.9 FM HD2. Today it's a romantic-ballads channel, but it lives on the HD2 subchannel of XHECD-FM, and XECD was the second radio station in Puebla, signing on May 5, 1940. Its first six months were spent on 1340 kHz with 350 watts under concession holder Ricardo Vázquez.

The station changed hands repeatedly in its early decades: Roberto Cañedo bought it in 1946, Oscar Frese Márquez took the concession five years later, and in 1954 Joaquín Grajales Corral acquired it. In 1969, Radio Puebla, S.A. was created as the concessionaire, and XECD became the flagship of Grupo Oro, which remains in Grajales family hands to this day — a rarity in Mexican radio.

Its modern history shows how turbulent the dial became. Between 2004 and 2007 it was affiliated with Radio Fórmula as "Fórmula 1170." In August 2015 it rebranded as Ciudad W, linking up with the W Radio network. In early 2018, XECD moved to 92.9 MHz on FM and adopted the romantic La Romántica format; the AM transmitter was shut off on August 7, 2020. Then, on August 2, 2021, La Romántica became online-only (the format also continued on XHEV-FM in Atlixco until July 2022), and XHECD-FM flipped to Radio Disney, whose programming launched August 16 of that year. Both still coexist on the same frequency today: Radio Disney Puebla 92.9 FM on the main HD signal, La Romántica on HD2.

XEHIT → La Comadre 105.5: The AM Migration That Went to Court

The second chapter is La Comadre 105.5, today a Grupo ACIR grupera station broadcasting from San Bernardino Tlaxcalancingo, just outside the city. Its roots go back to XEHIT-AM 1310, which received its concession on September 3, 1968 and was later absorbed by Grupo ACIR.

Like most Mexican AM stations, XEHIT sought to migrate to FM. On April 11, 2018, the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) approved its move to 95.5 FM as XHHIT-FM — a frequency that had originally been earmarked for another station, XEZT-AM 1250, which never paid its migration fee. XHHIT went on the air November 15, 2018.

But the story twisted: it turned out the IFT had made an error that led it to deny XEZT's original request, and a court ordered the institute to let XEZT migrate to 95.5 after all. The result: in September 2020 the IFT approved moving XHHIT-FM to 105.5 MHz, effective October 6 of that year, paired with a format change from Spanish oldies (Radio Felicidad) to grupera as La Comadre. XEHIT-AM had already gone silent in November 2019 after a year of simulcasting.

This is the same nationwide AM-to-FM migration wave that reshaped XECD's history — the two stations' paths crossed in the same regulatory years, 2018 to 2021, when Puebla's dial was essentially redrawn.

XEEG → W Radio: Fifty Years to Reach FM

The third thread begins in the neighboring state. W Radio Puebla, on 92.1 FM and 1280 AM, traces back to XEEG, which received its concession on November 26, 1970. It was licensed to Panzacola, on the Tlaxcala-Puebla border, with Ramón Bojalil y Bojalil as concessionaire until 1980. In the 1980s, XEEG physically moved from Panzacola into the city of Puebla — a reminder that Puebla's radio market has always pulled in signals from beyond state lines.

Its FM migration was the messiest of the three. The IFT approved XEEG's move to 92.1 FM on the very same day as XEHIT's, April 11, 2018 — but XEEG never paid the migration fee. The frequency was instead granted to XEPUE-AM, which launched as XHPUE-FM in August 2018. A legal dispute followed, ending with the IFT forcing XHPUE-FM to relocate to 104.3 MHz in 2021 to free up 92.1 for XEEG. The FM's technical parameters were approved February 4, 2022, and full-time FM broadcasts didn't begin until October 2023.

Meanwhile, the ownership and format changed around it: NTR acquired the ABC Radio chain from OEM in April 2021, the station was rebranded Radio Cañón in 2022 along with the rest of the chain, and on April 24, 2023, as part of a national alliance with Radiópolis, XEEG-AM adopted the W Radio news-and-talk format. Today the station belongs to Grupo Radio Cañón.

Three stations, one story: a 1940 pioneer, a 1968 concession, and a 1970 border-town signal — all ending up on Puebla's modern FM dial within the last few years.

The Stations to Know Today

Beyond the historic three, these are Puebla's most-listened stations in our directory:

• La Grupera — the city's top grupera outlet, with a strong hold on listeners who want banda, norteño and regional Mexican all day.
• Amor Puebla — romantic ballads and pop in the classic Amor network style.
• Match Puebla — contemporary hits for a younger crowd.
• MIX Puebla — English and Spanish pop mix.
• Exa FM Puebla — youth-focused hits and pop latino.
• LOS40 Puebla — chart music, current and nostalgic depending on the hour.
• Pasión FM — sports and passion-driven talk for Puebla's fan culture.
• Arroba FM — urban and pop for digital-native listeners.
• Ultra Puebla and Ultra Huauchinango — the same brand serving both the capital and the northern Sierra.
• La Magnífica, with a sibling signal in Atlixco, covering the south of the state.

Regional stations matter here too: Vive FM in Tehuacán, La Ke Buena in Ciudad Serdán and La Poderosa in San Martín bring grupera and regional Mexican to the towns many migrant families in the US actually come from. If your family is from the Sierra Norte or the Mixteca region, these smaller signals are often the ones that feel like home.

For something completely different, El Basurero de Dago offers an independent, personality-driven alternative, and Radio Cholollan serves the city's communities with local programming in the tradition of Puebla's name in Nahuatl — Cholollan.

What Puebla Listens To, By Genre

Puebla's musical identity leans hard regional. Here's how our 28 stations break down:

• Regional Mexicano — 11 stations, tied for the top spot. Banda, norteño, grupero: this is the heart of the Puebla dial.
• Pop Latino and hits — 11 stations, sharing first place. Networks like Mix, Exa, LOS40 and Match compete for pop listeners.
• Banda — 8 stations. The sinaloense brass tradition has a firm foothold here.
• News and talk — 7 stations, including W Radio and other talkers.
• Rock en Español — 6 stations, a solid scene for a city with a strong student population.
• Románticas and baladas — 5 stations, keeping alive the format La Romántica made historic in Puebla.
• Clásicos and retro — 3 stations.
• Reggaetón and urbano — 1 station, though urban content also shows up on pop and youth stations like Arroba FM.

The takeaway: regional Mexican dominates, but unlike many mid-size Mexican cities, Puebla balances it with a genuinely strong pop and youth lineup — a legacy of its college-town character and its large metropolitan market.

How to Listen from the US

All 28 stations in our Puebla section stream live online, which means distance doesn't matter anymore. A few practical tips:

• Time difference: Most of the US observes time zones that are 1 to 3 hours ahead of Puebla, depending on the season and your state. Central Time (Chicago, Dallas) is usually 1 hour ahead of Puebla; Eastern Time (New York, Florida) is 2 hours ahead; the West Coast is roughly aligned with Puebla, with small seasonal variations. If a morning show runs 6 to 10 AM in Puebla, you'll catch it an hour or two earlier on your clock in most of the country.
• Best hours for live shows: Mexican morning shows (approximately 6 to 11 AM local) are the liveliest, with phone-ins, news and comedy. Afternoon drive (around 3 to 7 PM) brings music-heavy blocks and sports talk on stations like Pasión FM.
• Sports timing: Puebla's baseball and soccer broadcasts often air at night local time — convenient for US listeners, since evening games in Mexico fall during afternoon or early evening hours in most American time zones.
• Find your station fast: Browse the full Mexico directory, narrow to Puebla, and filter by genre. If you only remember the name and not the frequency, search "Grupera," "Comadre" or "Amor" directly.
• Save your favorites: Once you find your stations, bookmark them. HD subchannels like La Romántica HD2 stream online exactly like any main signal, so you're not missing anything by listening from abroad.

Nearby Regions Worth Exploring

Puebla radio sits at a crossroads. If you want to widen your listening:

• Mexico City — 350 stations, the largest radio market in the Spanish-speaking world. National networks often originate here.
• Veracruz — 44 stations, Puebla's historic trading partner to the east, with son jarocho and tropical music you won't find on Puebla's dial.
• Sinaloa — 67 stations and the birthplace of banda, the genre that fills 8 of Puebla's frequencies.
• Guadalajara and Jalisco — 59 and 54 stations respectively, the home of mariachi and regional Mexican innovation.
• Monterrey and Nuevo León — 52 and 41 stations, a northern powerhouse for norteño and news radio.
• Chihuahua — 54 stations with a northern border flavor.

Whether you're in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago or a smaller town, Puebla's dial is now one tap away — from a 1940 pioneer turned Radio Disney to the grupera stations your family grew up with. Turn it on and you're back home.