TV Atzeca's factorum.

In November 1990, the Mexican government announced its intention to privatize Channel 7, Channel 22 and 77 additional TV frequencies. Channel 13 was added to these in 1992.

Early in 1993, the Federal Government created Television Azteca, a company that incorporated a group of TV stations, which included 90 frequencies. The government asked for bids, which in May 2003 was won by a consortium headed by Radio Televisora del Centro of Ricardo B. Salinas, with a bid for U.S.$645 million for Canal 7 and Canal 13. In the same year, the consortium, renamed TV Azteca, received a bank loan of U.S. $226 million, to pay a $200 million portion of the bid, which was paid in three installments: in July, September and November of 1993. The U.S. network NBC, provided the initial technical and programming expertise.

Canal 13 is now TV Azteca's flagship network, covering over 97 percent of Mexico's TVHH, while Canal 7 covers 94 percent.

TV Azteca also operates, throughout Mexico, 41 local TV stations covering all major cities, including Acapulco, Guadalajara, Monterrey and Cancun. In 1997, TV Azteca went public trading on the New York and D.E stock markets.

AztecaAmerica, the group's most recent addition, was born May 13, 2003, and now covers 74 percent of the Hispanic TVHH with 24 UHF and one VHF TV stations.

The company is divided into four main business units called "fabricas": Azteca Digital (for production including Estudios Azteca), headed by Martin Luna; Azteca America, headed by Luis Echarte; the Channel Division headed by Guillermo Alegret, which includes Canal 13, Canal 7 and Internet and International Sales. This later fabrica, under Marcel Vinay Sr. incorporates program acquisition, program and format international sales, TV Azteca International and Comarex, an independent company headed by Marcel Vinay, Jr. TV Azteca

International distributes the signals of Canal 13 to 12 countries in Latin America, mainly via cable-TV reaching 2.2 million TVHH. Total international sales were $12 million in 2002.

The Mexico City-based Comarex, which started in 1982 in the publishing industry. It was transformed into a TV program distribution company in 1993 and, in 1996, became the exclusive international distributor of TV Azteca product.

Mexico's News

Canal Once, the 45-year old Mexico City-based educational network, will be carried by DirecTV in the U.S. and marketed by Satmex Maximo as Once Mexico. The expansion of Mexico's TV north of the border is due to the large Mexican population in the U.S. (a group that prefers Coca Cola bottled in Mexico, rather than the one in the U.S.). It is estimated that such TV channels have a potential audience of 25 million viewers, out of an estimated 36 million Spanish-speaking Hispanics, of which 65 percent is of Mexican origin.

However, a recent survey by Los Angeles-based Centro Hispano Pew, indicated that Hispanics prefer to watch news in English. According to the survey, 44 percent of Hispanics watch both Spanish and English news. But, while 31 percent of Hispanics watch only English news, just 24 percent follow news solely in Spanish.

Mexico's anti-trust regulators, the CFC, have rejected a proposal from News Corp. to take over the local satellite television distribution of DirecTV Mexico. The ruling would prevent Grupo Televisa, News Corp's partner in SKY Latin America, from taking over DirecTV subscribers. SKY Mexico's services are distributed through Innova, a company owned 60 percent by Televisa, 30 percent by News Corp and 10 percent by TCI.

News Corp bought control of DirecTV U.S. and Latin America, last December. Cisneros Group owns 14 percent of DirecTV Latin America.