Long before FM radio was common in northern Mexico, a station in Torreón, Coahuila was already on the air. XHPE-FM received its broadcast concession on December 8, 1975, and signed on a week later as the very first FM station in the Comarca Lagunera, the desert region straddling Coahuila and Durango. Five decades on, that same frequency now carries La Mejor, branded locally as Estéreo Gallito, and still speaks directly to the Laguna region it helped put on the radio map.
The station's original owner, Alonso Gómez Aguirre, built the first FM signal in a market that had only known AM. Today the concession sits with D.L.R. Radio, S.A. de C.V., a name tied to Luis de la Rosa of Grupo Radio Estéreo Mayran (GREM), the network that now operates the 97.1 frequency under an affiliation with MVS Radio's La Mejor chain.
Grupera Roots, Local Flavor
La Mejor's national programming leans on grupera, the accordion and tuba-driven regional Mexican sound that dominates dance halls from Coahuila to Jalisco, and Estéreo Gallito folds that network content into a distinctly local identity. According to GREM's own coverage, the station mixes musical blocks dedicated to Mexican regional hits with entertainment programming and listener interaction built around the rhythms of daily life in the Laguna.
Los Hijos de la Laguna and El Pastelazo
One of the station's signature touches is a segment called El Pastelazo, run through the morning program Los Hijos de la Laguna, in which the station shows up to surprise listeners with a birthday cake live on air. It is a small gesture, but one that captures how Estéreo Gallito operates less like a national relay and more like a neighbor with a microphone, a reputation built over decades of morning shows, call-in segments, and regional music dedicated to the towns that make up the Comarca Lagunera.
Why It Still Matters
Fifty years after becoming the region's first FM signal, La Mejor (Estéreo Gallito) remains one of Torreón's most recognizable stations, a place where grupera classics and modern regional Mexican hits share airtime with the kind of local color that only comes from half a century of broadcasting to the same desert valley.