103
Opening Mexico’s Broadcast Media
8 Mexico City earthquake
Rating
6
4 Format changes Contested presidential elections
2
1980
1985
1990
sources: Consultores Internacionales, 1995; Metromedia INRA.
Figure 7. Ratings at Radio Red, 1980–94 (as a percent of all Mexico City households with radios).
nonpartisan entrepreneurs.40 And Mexican television remained dominated by an openly pro-government monopoly. Privatization (at Last) President Salinas’ program of economic liberalization, however, finally reached broadcasting on August 2, 1993, with the privatization of government-owned television channels. Televisión Azteca, as the new network was baptized, introduced an element of competition into Mexican broadcast television. To be sure, Azteca was initially hobbled by the usual legacies of public sector ownership and management: low ratings, high costs, technological obsolescence, administrative incompetence, and a corporate culture that celebrated organizational slack.41 Nevertheless, it had important financial backers: two Texas-based banks, two Mexican banks (Atlántico and Bancomer), and NBC (which sold Azteca programming and reserved the right to purchase up to 20% of the new network).42 For the first time in over two decades, Televisa would face real competition from a well-financed national broadcaster.