Radio stations from Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas

If you're from Tuxtla Gutiérrez or you grew up in a Chiapaneco household in the US, you know the city's radio has a personality all its own. It's the sound of the Valle de Chiapas: romantic baladas in the morning, grupera at midday, pop and rock en español in the afternoon, and news anchors who say "Tuchtla" the way abuela says it.

We currently list 14 live stations from Tuxtla Gutiérrez, and several of them carry genuinely deep local roots — a couple going back to the 1960s. Here's the story of radio in the city, told through its stations, plus a practical guide to listening from the United States.

A City Told Through Its Stations

The AM pioneers

Radio in Tuxtla didn't start on FM. It started on the AM dial, with small stations broadcasting a thousand watts by day and a fraction of that at night — just enough to cover the valley.

Two of those early stations still exist today, transformed:

• XEYL-AM 1400, licensed in April 1964, originally broadcasting from nearby Chiapa de Corzo. It later changed call signs to XEVV-AM, moved to 920 kHz, changed owners, and eventually migrated to FM. Today it's JOYA 101.7.
• XELM-AM 1240, which received its concession in November 1964 and was owned by Radio Chiapas, S.A. It broadcast with 1,000 watts by day and 250 at night before eventually landing on the FM band. Today it's RADIO ZOQUE 105.9.

That's remarkable continuity. The station your grandparents might have heard on a kitchen radio in the late 1960s is, in a sense, still on the air — just at a different spot on the dial and with a very different sound.

The 1970s and a family business

The third station with a documented history in our catalog arrived a bit later. XEUD-AM 1360 received its concession in July 1979 and has belonged to the Siman family ever since — a rare thing in Mexican radio, where stations change hands constantly. It migrated to FM in the 2010s and today plays grupera as LA KEBUENA 100.1.

The AM-to-FM migration

If you've noticed a pattern — AM origins, FM present — that's no accident. Across Mexico, stations that started on AM have been migrating to FM, where signals are clearer and listeners have moved. Tuxtla's radio reflects that national shift:

• XEYL/XEVV migrated after approval in 2010, and in 2016 adopted the adult contemporary format Stereo Joya before shortening its name to simply Joya in March 2020.
• XEUD became XHUD-FM, La Ke Buena 100.1, after its migration was approved in 2010.
• XELM became XHLM-FM. In February 2021, the Radio Zoque format that had been on 99.3 FM moved to 105.9 MHz, replacing a romantic-music format called Romántica.

The names and frequencies changed; the stations didn't disappear. That's the arc of radio in Tuxtla: old signals, new homes.

The Stations to Know Today

Here are the most-listened stations from Tuxtla in our directory, and what each one is good for:

• EXA FM 98.5 — youth-oriented hits, pop and pop-latino. The station to put on when you want today's chart music with local breakaways. Also listed as 98.5 Exa FM and Exa FM Tuxtla depending on the stream.
• LOS40 Tuxtla — the local outlet of the big national hits franchise. Top 40, countdowns, and plenty of pop en español.
• LA KEBUENA 100.1 — grupera and regional Mexican, carrying the Ke Buena network format. Banda, norteño, and the sound of a Sunday family gathering.
• JOYA 101.7 — adult contemporary. Baladas, soft pop, and the audio equivalent of a calm morning coffee.
• RADIO ZOQUE 105.9 — the station with the deepest documented roots in the city, as we saw above. Also available as Radio Zoque and Radio Zoque 105.9 FM.
• La Poderosa — regional Mexican favorites for the workday.
• BELLA MÚSICA 93.1 — romantic music and baladas. Also listed as 93.1 Bella Música.
• UNICACH Radio — the university station from the Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas. Expect a different mix: cultural programming, student voices, and music you won't hear on the commercial dial.

A practical tip: several stations appear more than once in the catalog because they offer multiple streams or were listed under slightly different names. If one stream doesn't load, try the alternate listing — same station, different feed.

What Tuxtla Listens To, by Genre

The city's 14 stations break down into a clear picture of local taste:

• Pop Latino and hits — 5 stations, the largest group. Tuxtla loves its current chart music.
• Rock en español — 5 stations. Café Tacvba, Héroes del Silencio, Zoé, and the classics.
• Regional Mexican — 4 stations, plus 2 dedicated specifically to banda.
• Romantic and baladas — 3 stations for the smooth stuff.
• News and talk — 3 stations keeping the city informed.

That balance — young pop energy on one side, regional and romantic traditions on the other — is very Tuxtla. It's a young, growing city with deep roots, and the dial shows it.

How to Listen from the US

This is the part that matters if you're reading this from Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, or anywhere else with a Chiapaneco community.

Everything streams live. Every station listed above has a live stream you can play directly from this site, on your phone or computer. No antenna, no radio, no app store required. Tap the station, press play, and you're hearing exactly what's on the air in Tuxtla right now.

A note on the time difference. Chiapas is on Central Time — the same zone as Mexico City. That means:

• If you're on the US East Coast, Tuxtla is 1 hour behind you (2 hours during the weeks when US daylight saving is active but Mexico's is not — a small window in spring and fall).
• If you're in the US Central Time zone (Texas, Illinois, most of the Midwest), you're on the same clock as Tuxtla, with brief exceptions during those transition weeks.
• If you're on the US West Coast, Tuxtla is 2 hours ahead.

When to tune in for what:

• Morning shows, news, and dedications run on Tuxtla local time, so on the West Coast that means tuning in from about 5 a.m. Pacific for the 7 a.m. local content.
• Midday grupera and banda blocks — La Ke Buena territory — land around late morning to early afternoon local time.
• Evening drive time and the youth-oriented shows on EXA and LOS40 come on in the late afternoon and evening, Tuxtla time.

If you want your day in the US to feel synchronized with home, just match the genre to the clock: baladas and news in your morning, regional Mexican at midday, pop and rock en español in the evening. That's roughly how the stations in Tuxtla program themselves anyway.

Exploring Radio Beyond Tuxtla

Once you've got your Tuxtla favorites saved, the rest of the country is a click away. Some starting points worth the trip:

• Mexico City — the biggest radio market in the country, with 350 stations in our catalog. Every genre, every format, every national network.
• Guadalajara, Jalisco — 59 stations, and a strong regional identity of its own.
• Monterrey, Nuevo León — 52 stations from the norteño capital of the north.
• Sinaloa — 67 stations, and if you like banda, this is the heartland.
• Chihuahua and Veracruz — two very different regional scenes, 54 and 44 stations respectively.
• Jalisco as a whole adds another 54 stations beyond Guadalajara.
• Or browse the complete Mexico directory and wander.

A Small City With a Long Signal

Tuxtla Gutiérrez isn't one of Mexico's giant radio markets, but its story is richer than its size suggests. Three of its stations trace back to AM concessions from the 1960s and 1970s, survived ownership changes, frequency moves, and the migration to FM, and are still broadcasting today. One has stayed in the same family for over four decades. Another gave up a romantic format to become something new.

That's local radio doing what it does best: enduring. And now, thanks to live streaming, distance doesn't dim the signal. Wherever you are in the US, Tuxtla is one play button away.