The frequency behind La Ke Buena Mérida has been on air for longer than grupera music has been popular in Yucatán, and it did not start out playing anything like the banda and regional Mexican hits it carries today. Its identity has shifted at least three times across eight decades, tracking Mexican radio's own evolving tastes the whole way.
The story begins on December 18, 1941, when the concession for XEMQ-AM 1240 was granted to Lázaro Achurra Suárez. The station stayed under his ownership for nearly three decades before being sold to Radio Mayab in 1970, a transfer that set up its next major reinvention.
By the 1990s the station had moved to 810 kHz and rebranded as "Tus Panteras Juveniles," a pop and rock format aimed squarely at Yucatán's youth, about as far from today's grupera sound as the station's format has ever traveled. That youth-pop chapter lasted until Mexico's broader migration of AM stations to FM reached Mérida. XEMQ was authorized to move to FM in 2010, taking on the call sign XHMQM-FM, with the added M standing for Mérida.
The final shift arrived in 2015, when Cadena RASA moved its La Ke Buena grupera format onto XHMQM from its previous home on XHMRI-FM 93.7. La Ke Buena itself is licensed from Radiópolis, the media division behind Mexico's biggest regional Mexican radio brand, and the format gave the frequency the identity it has kept ever since, banda, grupera and contemporary regional Mexican hits alongside shows like Los Hijos de la Mañana and a station tagline promising listeners "el mágico mundo de la radio," the magical world of radio.
For listeners in Mérida who want banda and grupera done properly, La Ke Buena offers exactly that today, running on a frequency that has already lived through youth pop, AM static and a full band migration before finding the sound it was always going to end up with.