Las Estrellas

Las Estrellas (Spanish for "The Stars") is a Mexican commercial broadcast television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It began official broadcasts on March 21, 1951, and is distributed free-to-air across Mexico through affiliated stations, with XEW-TDT in Mexico City serving as its transmitter. It is Mexico's most-watched television network and TelevisaUnivision's flagship broadcast outlet in the country. The network is also the nation's second-oldest television broadcaster, tracing its roots to XEW-TV, after XHTV-TDT (now its sister channel N+ Foro).

Its programming is centered on telenovelas, game shows, comedy series, and newscasts. On weekends, the schedule expands to include films, reality shows, special events such as sports broadcasts and award ceremonies, as well as occasional simulcasts of major telenovela finales on Televisa Regional stations. The network also airs major Mexican soccer matches and, at times, boxing events. Much of its programming is also carried in the United States by Univision.^[1] Since 2003, a timeshift feed has been available nationwide on Sky México and Izzi Telecom, where it replaced Ponchivisión by mutual agreement.^[2]

Las Estrellas originated from XEW-TV, which began broadcasting on 11 March 1951. The channel was a sister station to the legendary XEW-AM radio station, owned by Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, which was also the owner of the newly launched channel. It was the second commercial TV channel to be established in Mexico City, after XHTV channel 4, owned by the Novedades newspaper. XEW-TV's first transmission was a live, play-by-play, outside broadcast of a Mexican League match, with XEW radio veteran Pedro Septién on commentary duties. Other than live sports broadcasts, XEW-TV initially broadcast films from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, as its studios in Chapultepec 18 were still under construction. The studio complex, known as Televicentro, would be inaugurated in January 1952. Soon thereafter, the programming scope would be expanded to include live variety shows and television theatre showcases, in a style similar to XEW radio's similarly formatted shows.

XEW-TV would be a pioneer in Mexican television, and would establish many industry firsts. In 1962, the channel would become the flagship network of the newly merged Telesistema Mexicano, which also brought XHTV and XHGC under Azcárraga's hands, and, after merging with XHTM-TV and Televisión Independiente de México, many of these stations' programs would move to XEW-TV. As a result, XEW-TV rapidly grew and became the country's most watched TV network, a position which was undisputed for many years, as Televisa held a monopoly on commercial TV in Mexico, which even went into heavily influencing the political landscape in the country. As a result, by 1985, and in preparation for the 1986 FIFA World Cup (in which Televisa was the host broadcaster), XEW-TV was renamed El Canal de las Estrellas, in reference to the station's line-up of actors, comedians and presenters. This was further reinforced with the launch of an image campaign song, sung by Lucía Méndez, in 1988.

Before the TSM-TIM merger, XEW's network was carrying its telenovelas from 4:15pm to 7:45pm.^{[3] :62}

After the death of Emilio Azcárraga Milmo in 1997, El Canal de las Estrellas suffered a massive restructuring of its programming. The biggest moment of the restructuring came in 1998, when 24 Horas, the Jacobo Zabludovsky-anchored newscast, long a propaganda mouthpiece of the Mexican political regime, was canceled. The station's brand identity was also replaced with a new logo created by Pablo Rovalo. After a period of ratings turmoil, viewership stabilized, but the channel had to contend now with a surgent XHDF, freshly privatized and bought under the auspicies of TV Azteca.

After years of decline, particularly after 2012, as accusations of political bias in favor of then-President Enrique Peña Nieto began to hamper the broadcaster's credibility, in 2016, the decision was made to relaunch entirely the station's branding and programming. On 22 August 2016, XEW-TV was renamed as Las Estrellas, and introduced many changes to its programming schedule, including shorter and snappier telenovelas and news programming, as well as dropping many long-running programming in favour of programming oriented to a younger audience.^[4] The changes generated a big ratings decline;^{[5] [6]} as a result, by 2017, much of the new programming was canceled and the prime time telenovelas and news programming were relocated to pre-relaunch timeslots^[7] and viewership stabilized, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[8]

Las Estrellas is available as a pay television network in Europe and Australia as Las Estrellas Europa^[9] and Las Estrellas Latinoamérica in Central and South America through Televisa Networks.^[10] Both feeds differ from the Las Estrellas programming, usually broadcasting shows weeks behind their original broadcast.

The European feed was known as Galavisión until 2005 and started broadcasting in late 1988.^[11] On October 15, 2005, the channel adopted El Canal de las Estrellas, as Galavisión was associated to old movies, outdated telenovelas and sports events broadcast with delay. The rebrand enabled the channel to get up-to-date with the Latin American feed.^[12] In January 2025, satellite distribution of the feed changed from Eutelsat 9B to Intelsat 35e.^[13]

In Canada, XEW-TDT and the Las Estrellas schedule is available in full on Western Canada Rogers Cable (limited to the Greater Toronto Area) and Bell Fibe TV as an eligible foreign service.

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Weekday programming in the afternoon and prime time consists of telenovelas. Las Estrellas airs sports programming and sports specials like the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. Morning and afternoon programming consists of news, sports, talk shows, and variety shows. Night time programming is filled with a news program and Univision-produced shows. Examples of shows produced by Las Estrellas are Recuerda y Gana, Hoy, El Juego de las Estrellas, and Cuéntamelo ya. The network also produces and airs the Premios TVyNovelas , sponsored by the Televisa-owned magazine of the same name and considered the highest honor in the domestic Mexican television industry.

From 1973 until 2000, Televisa took part in the annual Ibero-American OTI Festival for twenty-seven editions representing Mexico. To select its entry to the international festival, the network organized a large-scale televised national competition with several phases, which was one of Canal 2's flagship programs each year. Televisa also staged the 3rd, 5th, 20th, and 28th editions of the OTI Festival in Acapulco, and the 10th and 13th editions in Mexico City. Televisa won the competition six times: in 1973 with "Qué alegre va María ", written by Celia Bonfil and performed by Imelda Miller [es ]; in 1975 with "La felicidad ", written by Felipe Gil and performed by Gualberto Castro; in 1985 with "El fandango aquí ", written by Marcial Alejandro [es ] and performed by Eugenia León; in 1989 with "Una canción no es suficiente ", written by Jesús Monárrez and performed by Analí; in 1990 with "Un bolero ", written by Francisco Curiel and Pedro Alberto Cárdenas and performed by Carlos Cuevas; and in 1997 with "Se diga lo que se diga ", written by Francisco Curiel and José Manuel Fernández and performed by Iridián.

The following is a list of all full-time Las Estrellas repeaters:

• Official website (in Spanish)