History
XHTV was Mexico's first television station and one of the building blocks of Telesistema Mexicano, which became Televisa in 1973.
Romulo O'Farril received the concession for XHTV in 1949, granted to Televisora de México S.A., owned by Novedades, O'Farril's existing newspaper. [4] The station received equipment starting in March 1950, ending with the delivery of a mobile studio in July that year. [5] Test broadcasts started on July 5. [6] Its facilities were located at the National Lottery Building, the highest in the city at the time. Around 2,000 sets picked up its signal. [7] Its broadcasts started on September 1 with the live coverage of the annual presidential message to the opening of the Congress, [8] followed by regular programming from 5pm (the first program being Teatro de la Fantasía) to 7:30pm, which included an extended news bulletin with comments of the presidential ceremony. [9] The official inauguration, however, took place the previous day, on August 31, with a "artistic musical" program from the Jockey Club of the Hipódromo de las Américas with the participation of the Secretary of Communications, Agustín García López. [4] Initially, it aired regular programming for two hours a day each evening, [10] from 5pm to 7pm, with longer programming on Sundays from 4pm to 7pm. [11] In order to increase its production capacities, the station moved to two new premises in 1951, with studios at Bucareli street number 4 and Balderas street. [4]
An American survey from a correspondent to TV-Radio Life magazine in 1952 said that O'Farrill's programs were "poorly produced", that the films seen on the station were older than in the United States at the time and that the quality of the technical staff was "questionable", paling in contrast to XEW. [12] At the end of the year, XHTV triumphed over XEW in theatrical performances and remote broadcasts, but lost its grip on operatic broadcasts when XEW's program presented by Raúl Chávez beat XETV's analog in the second half of the year. [13]
In 1955, XHTV became a part of Telesistema Mexicano, [4] and, as consequence, it moved to the new Televicentro facilities shared by the three stations. [14]
In 2001, XHTV began using the name 4TV with a program lineup targeted at the Mexico City area; from January 2003 it adopted a new logo and the slogan "El Canal de la Ciudad" (The City Channel). [15] For the 2009-2010 season of the channel, its morning program Matutino Express increased its length by one hour and Ellas con estrellas moved to an 11am timeslot. Its former late afternoon slot was filled by canned programming. [16]
On August 30, 2010 (sixty years after the channel was founded), the channel's name was changed to FOROtv (literally "Forum TV"), with most of Televisa's news programs moved here, such as Las Noticias por Adela (from XEQ), and with new news and talk programs being created. Prior to this, the channel, under the name of "Canal de la Ciudad" ("The City's Channel"), broadcast programs targeted at Mexico City's metro area, as well as reruns of American series and blocks of Mexican movies.
Under this format, the channel seeks to emulate the success achieved by its predecessor ECO (which operated from 1988 to 2001). It competes in a crowded cable news space with such channels as TV Azteca's adn40 and Azteca Noticias, Telefórmula, Efekto TV, CNN en Español, Excélsior TV, and Milenio Televisión, among others.
