XELD-TV

XELD-TV was a television station licensed to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, broadcasting in English and Spanish for the Río Grande Valley region. The station broadcast on channel 7 from September 15, 1951, to April 1954.

History

Opening

The 1948 freeze on new television station licenses placed by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States stalled any development of television on the American side of the Río Grande, which was allotted VHF channels 4 and 5. Meanwhile, per international agreement, Matamoros had received the allotments for channels 2, 7, and 11, along with channel 9 in Reynosa (which also received channel 12 in 1952).

Meanwhile, channel 7 in Matamoros was being built out by XESE-TV. XESE was owned by Compañía Mexicana de Televisión, S.A., whose owner, Manuel D. Leal, was vice president and general manager of KIWW radio in San Antonio. Other partners included Pedro de Lille, W.B. Miller, and Noel Alrich Solano. However, new partners entered into the picture.