Radio stations from Xalapa, Veracruz

Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz, is a city of hills, fog, coffee, and the Universidad Veracruzana. It is also a city with one of the oldest radio stories in the state. If you grew up there, or your parents did, the dial in Xalapa was never just noise — it was a map of the city's families, businesses, and institutions changing hands across eight decades.

Today our catalog lists 23 live stations in Xalapa, and the story of how they got here is genuinely worth knowing, because several of those stations have been on the air, in one form or another, since the 1940s.

This guide walks you through that history in order, then gets practical: which stations to know, what genres dominate the Xalapa dial, and how to listen from anywhere in the United States without missing your favorite morning show.

The Story of Xalapa Radio, Told Through Its Stations

What makes Xalapa unusual among mid-sized Mexican cities is how early radio arrived and how continuously it has been handed down. The concessions granted in the 1940s are still recognizable in today's FM dial — the call signs changed, the frequencies moved, the brands came and went, but the lineage is traceable. Here it is, station by station.

The first station: XEKL, 1942

Radio in Xalapa begins with MAGIA 93.7. Its roots go back to XEKL-AM 550, which received its concession on January 8, 1942 — the first radio station in the city. It was owned by Carlos Ferráez Matos until 1967, broadcasting with 1,000 watts by day and 250 by night, later boosted to 5,000 daytime watts.

XEKL eventually migrated to FM in 2010 as XHKL-FM 93.7, owned today by Avanradio under the name Magia. And here is a lovely detail: in 2016, Carlos Ferráez Matos was honored with a commemorative bill issued by the Lotería Nacional. The man who put Xalapa's first station on the air ended up on a lottery ticket — few radio pioneers get that.

Keep the Ferráez name in mind. It comes back more than once in this story.

The university's voice: Radio UV, 1944

Barely two years later, on September 15, 1944 — just days after the Universidad Veracruzana itself was founded — the university launched its own station. That station survives today as Radio UV, listed in our catalog as +Retro 90.5 HD (Xico), broadcasting on 90.5 FM from a transmitter in Acajete with news, cultural programming, and classical music, on the air from 5 in the morning until 1 at night.

Its history is dramatic. By 1946 it was transmitting as XEJJ on 580 AM with 200 watts. In 1955 it increased to 500 watts and moved to 1400 kHz; in 1956 it began broadcasting from the Cerro de Macuiltépetl with studios at the Teatro del Estado in Xalapa, airing 12 hours of classical music a day. In the 1950s its call sign changed to XEXB. The station was later closed, transmitting music only sporadically, until 1965, when a frequency-sharing arrangement with XEZL was agreed to keep cultural programming alive. By 1979, XERUV-AM was a 10,000-watt station on 1550 kHz, and on March 2, 1980 it began broadcasting 20 hours a day from the Teatro del Estado, with talk, sports, and children's literature. It moved into the Casona de Clavijero in 1988 and got a new transmission site in Acajete in 1997.

In 2014 the station received an FM sister, XHRUV-FM 90.5, under a separate permit, with test transmissions starting that June. Then came an administrative twist: in 2016, the IFT denied a long-pending renewal of the AM permit because the original 2005 filing had been submitted 15 days late. On June 1 of that year, XERUV-AM went silent and XHRUV-FM launched officially — the FM continuation of one of Mexico's oldest university stations.

The Ferráez and Santibañez era: 1946 onward

The postwar years brought more voices — and more family names.

AMOR 91.7 traces its lineage to XEOZ-AM 960, whose concession was granted to Luis Ignacio Santibañez Patiño on January 16, 1946. The current concession holder was created in 1983. The station took on its modern form later: an FM counterpart arrived in 1994 carrying ACIR's satellite contemporary format, and in the early 2000s it became the romantic Amor brand.

Then came the turmoil of 2022. In October of that year, the on-air staff announced their departure, following the sale or closure of five ACIR stations in Veracruz. On November 1, Carlos Ferráez took over operations — note the name, the same family as Xalapa's first broadcaster — initially keeping the Amor name and image ACIR had used. The transfer of the concession was approved by the IFT on May 24, 2023. On September 21, 2023, the operator surrendered its AM authorization, and the station became FM-only.

Another thread in this family web: LA NETA 102.5 began as XEJA-AM 1400, which received its concession on December 11, 1941 — actually the oldest date on this list — founded by Daniel Schacht Pérez. By the 1960s it belonged to its current concession holder, transmitting on 610 kHz, and it migrated from AM to FM in 2015. Today it carries regional Mexican and tropical music for Avanradio.

So by the mid-1940s, Xalapa already had three stations on AM — an impressive number for a mid-sized Mexican city at the time, and a sign of how commercially lively the region was.

1957 and the Coatepec connection

LOS40 104.1 has roots in XEGR-AM 1160, whose concession was granted on December 21, 1957. It transmitted from neighboring Coatepec with 1,000 watts — daytime only, a common limitation for AM stations of that era. In the late 1960s it moved to 1040, and in the 1990s its power rose to 2,500 watts by day and 1,000 by night. The move to FM was authorized in November 2010.

On air, the station carried the name "OK! FM" until April 1, 2019, when it became Los 40, adopting the hits franchise from Radiópolis. In late October 2022, Avanradio sold the station to Quatro Media Telecomunicaciones, its current owner — the same company that ended up running Amor 91.7.

The FM generation: 1974 and 1987

The 1970s and 1980s built the modern FM dial. 96.9 Joya (XHTZ-FM) received its concession on February 7, 1974. Then, on the very same day — April 14, 1987 — two more FM concessions were granted: DIGITAL 98.5 (XHWA-FM), originally belonging to Gloria Alicia Iñiguez Torres, and LA MÁQUINA 97.7 (XHOT-FM), originally belonging to Octavio Tena Álvarez del Castillo. Both stations are owned today by Avanradio.

Digital 98.5's recent history shows how fast formats move in Xalapa, and it is worth following because it explains a confusing situation on the dial. For years it was the dance-oriented One FM — a format so successful it was exported to the city of Veracruz on XHFM 94.9. On May 31, 2019, GRD took control and turned it into Exa FM. On May 1, 2021, when most GRD stations dropped their MVS Radio franchise brands, XHWA stayed a pop station under the "Soy FM" image, the same one used by XHPR-FM in the port city. It was later rebranded as Joya. Finally, in October 2024, XHTZ-FM and XHWA-FM swapped formats and operators: the Joya adult-contemporary format from Valanci Media Group landed on 96.9, while 98.5 became Digital. In March 2025, the transfer of the 96.9 concession from Avanradio to Radio Espectículo, S.A., a Valanci subsidiary, was approved.

That is why you will find both Joya 96.9 and 98.5 Digital in our catalog, each carrying a format that sat on the other frequency until recently.

The newest arrival: W Radio

W RADIO 92.9 (XHJH-FM) started as XEJH-AM, which received its concession in 1980 under Luis Ignacio Santibañez Flores — another Santibañez — transmitting on 1460 kHz. It migrated to the FM band in 2012. In August 2021, after the sale of the ABC Radio group by Organización Editorial Mexicana to NTR Medios de Comunicación, the ABC Radio name was dropped and the station took the Radio Cañón name, in line with other NTR stations.

Then, on April 24, 2023, a national alliance between NTR and Radiópolis saw 22 NTR stations adopt Radiópolis franchise formats, and Xalapa's station joined the W Radio news-and-talk network. For news lovers in the Xalapa diaspora, this is now one of the easiest ways to hear national Mexican conversation on a local frequency.

The Stations to Know Today

Out of the 23 live stations in the catalog, these are the ones our listeners in the US tune into most:

• Radio Más — the most-listened station from Xalapa in our directory
• W Radio Xalapa and 92.9 W Radio — news and talk
• Amor 91.7 and 91.7 Amor — romantic ballads
• LA LUPE 100.9 — nostalgia and classics, also listed as 100.9 La Lupe
• LA MÁQUINA 97.7 — grupera and regional
• LA NETA 102.5 — regional Mexican and tropical
• LOS40 104.1 — current hits in Spanish and English
• MAGIA 93.7 — the city's oldest broadcast lineage, now a contemporary FM

A practical tip: because stations in Xalapa have changed brands so often in the last few years — remember the Joya/Digital swap of October 2024 and the ACIR exit of 2022 — it is worth searching by frequency rather than by name if a stream seems to play something unexpected. The frequency is the stable part; the logo on top of it changes.

What Xalapa Sounds Like: Genres on the Dial

The genre breakdown tells you a lot about the city's taste:

• Clásicos y Retro — 12 stations, the largest group. Xalapa loves its oldies.
• Rock en Español — 9 stations, a strong showing that fits a university town.
• Pop Latino y Éxitos — 7 stations
• Románticas y Baladas — 6 stations
• Regional Mexicano — 6 stations
• Noticias y Hablada and Deportes — 3 stations each
• Tropical — 2 stations, keeping son and cumbia in the mix, as befits Veracruz

That retro count is remarkable: more than half the dial leans on music from past decades. If your parents or grandparents call Xalapa home, La Lupe 100.9 or Radio Más will feel familiar within minutes. If you want the city's younger side, Los40 104.1 is the pop option, and the nine rock en español stations are a good bridge for second-generation listeners who grew up on both sides of the border's musical divide.

How to Listen from the US

Every station listed above streams live through our directory — no VPN needed, no Mexican app store account, no antenna. Just open the station page and press play. The streams work on phones, tablets, and desktop browsers, so you can put Xalapa on in the kitchen, the car, or the office.

A note on timing: Xalapa is on Central Time, the same zone as Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. That means when you are in those cities, local Xalapa programs air at exactly the clock time you see. From US Eastern Time — New York, Miami, Atlanta — Xalapa programming runs one hour behind you: a morning show that starts at 7:00 in Xalapa starts at 8:00 your time. From Mountain Time, Xalapa is one hour ahead of your clock; from Pacific Time, two hours ahead. Arizona, which mostly skips daylight saving, can drift by an hour depending on the season, so double-check during the spring and fall changes.

When to listen, in Xalapa local time:

• 5:00 AM: Radio UV signs on first, with news and classical music — the earliest voice on the dial and the quietest way to start the day with a piece of Xalapa.
• Morning drive: W Radio's national programming and Radio Más are at full strength. This is the slot for news, traffic, and the conversational back-and-forth that makes Mexican morning radio feel like home.
• Midday: Romantic stations like Amor 91.7 carry their dedicated listener hours — ballads for lunch.
• Evening and night: Radio UV stays on until 1:00 AM, which is useful for West Coast listeners, for whom that is a very reasonable 11:00 PM. Sports stations carry evening games and analysis, especially during the baseball and soccer seasons that matter in Veracruz.

If you are the organized type, bookmark two or three station pages rather than one, so a format change or a dropped stream never leaves you without your sound of home.

Explore Beyond Xalapa

The state of Veracruz has 44 stations in our catalog, including the port city scene — worth a browse if your family's roots are in Veracruz proper rather than the capital. And if you want to widen your Mexican dial from there:

• Ciudad de México — 350 stations, the biggest selection in the country
• Sinaloa — 67 stations, brass-heavy and proud
• Guadalajara, Jalisco — 59 stations
• Chihuahua and Jalisco — 54 stations each
• Monterrey, Nuevo León — 52 stations
• Nuevo León — 41 stations statewide

Or browse everything at radios across Mexico.

Whatever took you away from Xalapa — work, family, a new chapter — the city's dial is still right there. Eighty-plus years of history, from a 1941 concession to a 2024 format swap, all streaming live, one click from wherever you are now.