UPDATE 7/22/2013 – Analog stations along the border are now off the air, apparently permanently after elections. 

UPDATE 5/13/2013- Analog stations along the border are back on the air today after electoral candidates complained about lack of exposure ahead of July 7 elections. 

Eight Tijuana TV stations went dark May 28, 2013 as the first broadcast market in Mexico to go all-digital, delayed a month from the previous target date of April 16. Those stations included:

• XHTJB channel 3, affiliated with Once TV, public/educational
• XETV channel 6, Televisa O&O, affiliated with Canal 5
• XEWT channel 12, Televisa O&O, affiliated with multiple networks
• XHTIT channel 21, TV Azteca O&O, affiliated with Azteca 7
• XHJK channel 27, TV Azteca O&O, affiliated with Azteca 13
• XHAS channel 33, Entravision operated, affiliated with Telemundo
• XHBJ channel 45, Cadena owned and Televisa operated, affiliated with Galavision
• XHUAA channel 57, Televisa O&O, affiliated with Canal de Estrellas

Notably, XETV had just celebrated 60 years of broadcasting, having signed on with English language broadcasting in 1953 and continuing to do so until last year, when it switched to Televisa’s Spanish-language broadcasts of Canal Cinco. XETV-DT was the first digital TV station to broadcast in Mexico in 2000, and likely the inspiration for having Tijuana selected as the first market to shutdown its analog TV.

Mexico’s EFE indicates that over 192,000 free digital TV converters were passed out to Tijuana area residents as part of the transition. Unconfirmed statistics have 48% of Tijuana residents receiving their TV via free over-the-air broadcasts.

Interestingly, Entravision-operated XHDTV on Cerro Bola near Tecate remains on the air on channel 49. The next shutdown date, November 26, 2013 is supposed to include Mexicali, but it is not known whether XHDTV will shutdown at that time.

What is not yet known is how the empty channels will affect FCC-mandated repacking of TV channels along the border. There’s likely to be a scramble on both sides of the border to occupy the empty lower UHF channels.

Francisco Laurent Martinez, who served as engineer and Chief Engineer of the Transmission Department at XETV in Tijuana from 1959 till this month, passed away March 24, 2013 in Tijuana. He saw the facility progress from a single English-language ABC affiliate for San Diego to a cluster of eight Televisa-operated TV stations, all now with solid-state transmitters and antennas on two self-supporting 500 foot towers.

He mentored engineer Humberto Borzani, who told us Francisco was born December 7th, 1930 in Tijuana. He graduated in 1956 as an Engineer with a major in Electronics and Communications in Mexico City. He served as Chief Engineer of the Radio Monitoring Station of SCT (the Mexican equivalent of the FCC) from 1972 to 1987. The SCT sent him to Washington to coordinate cross-border frequency allocation studies in 1979.

Francisco served as professor at the Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana from 1971 till 1987, and was founder of the associated cultural FM station Radio Tecnológico 88.7 MHz FM from 1987 till 2005.

On a personal note, I worked at XETV’s U.S. operations from 2004 till 2010, but was always warmly welcomed at the Mexican master control and transmission site. I have never seen a transmitter site like the one Francisco led, from the marble floor at the entrance and master control rooms to the spotless transmitter rooms to the twice-filtered air and shiny copper transmission lines. The 1955 GE transmitter was ready for air until just a few years ago. Their UPS and generator backups kept the transmitters going without interruption for years at a time. Francisco was justifiably proud of that facility, and he will be missed.