La Grande de Río Grande takes its name directly from the Zacatecas town it broadcasts from today, but the station did not start there. Its signal has moved towns, frequencies, and owners more than once since a concession was first granted more than six decades ago.
Founded in a Different Town Entirely
According to Wikipedia's history of XHZC-FM, the station's concession dates to 1962, when it launched as XEZC-AM 1360 in Concepción del Oro, a separate Zacatecas municipality. It was owned by Alberto Jaubert, a radio and television entrepreneur based in Saltillo, and ran on a modest 250 watts of power at launch.
From 1450 to 810 kHz, and a New Home
By the end of the 1960s, the station had relocated to Río Grande and shifted to 1450 kHz. Radiodifusoras de Zacatecas acquired it in 1972, and through the 1980s the signal moved again to 810 kHz, running 1,000 watts by day and 125 watts overnight before that nighttime power was later boosted to match the daytime signal. Every one of those moves happened before the station carried the name it uses today.
The Jump to FM
The AM-to-FM transition that gave the station its current identity did not happen until February 2011, when regulators cleared XEZC to migrate to the FM band. It emerged as XHZC-FM at 97.1 MHz with 25 kW of effective radiated power, finally adopting the branding La Grande de Río Grande, a name that only makes sense once you know the station had actually settled in Río Grande decades earlier.
Why It's Worth Tuning In
La Grande de Río Grande carries the regional Mexican and Latin American music typical of a Zacatecas full-service station, but its name is really a marker of a longer journey, a signal that started in Concepción del Oro under a Saltillo broadcaster and only became "La Grande" after settling in the town it is named for.