LOS40 Agua Prieta plays contemporary Spanish-language pop into one of Mexico's oldest and most historically loaded border towns, a city that grew out of a railroad crossing, weathered an attack by Pancho Villa's forces, and once counted two future Mexican presidents among its residents. The station itself is a relatively recent arrival to that history, having only carried the LOS40 format since 2021.
A Concession Older Than Its Current Format
The station has held its concession since 23 November 1994 under the call sign XHNNO-FM, technically licensed to the neighboring town of Naco, Sonora, even though its actual broadcast area is Agua Prieta, a distinction common in Mexican broadcasting where a transmitter's licensed location and its real service area don't always match, according to the station's licensing history. Grupo Radiofónico Zer, founded by Arnoldo Rodríguez Zermeño, has owned the station for its entire history.
From Exa FM to LOS40
For years the station carried Exa FM's pop programming, a format licensed from MVS Radio, before switching over to the LOS40 format on 3 February 2021. LOS40 itself arrived in Mexico in 2002, when the Spanish media company PRISA launched its "40 Principales" brand there, which now operates as a Radiópolis franchise carried by stations across the country rather than a single centrally-owned network. Grupo Radiofónico Zer runs several LOS40 franchise stations beyond Agua Prieta, including outlets in Aguascalientes, making the Sonora signal one node in a much larger national pop format rather than a standalone local brand.
A Railroad Town Turned Border City
Agua Prieta itself began around 1899, growing at the point where a railroad connecting Douglas, Arizona, to the mining town of Nacozari, Sonora, crossed the international border, according to the city's history. It developed largely as a customs and export hub tied to the copper smelters built across the line in Douglas starting in 1901, one for Phelps Dodge and another for the Calumet and Arizona Company. The town formally became its own municipality on 28 August 1916 and was not officially declared a city until 6 November 1942.
Pancho Villa and Two Presidents
Agua Prieta's early decades were shaped directly by the Mexican Revolution. The town was attacked by forces loyal to Pancho Villa, and two men who would each go on to become President of Mexico, Plutarco Elías Calles and Lázaro Cárdenas, both lived there. That kind of revolutionary-era weight is unusual for a town whose economy was built primarily around a rail junction and a customs post, and it gives Agua Prieta a historical profile well beyond its size.
Pop Music for a Twin-City Audience
LOS40 Agua Prieta broadcasts into a genuinely binational listening area, a border city whose daily life has always run in tandem with Douglas, Arizona, just across the line. Playing current Spanish-language pop, pop rock and urban hits into that kind of crossing-point community gives the station a built-in audience that straddles two countries even if the FM signal itself only legally serves one.
A Modern Format on Old Ground
LOS40 Agua Prieta is, on the surface, just another franchise outlet for a Spanish pop format that has spread across dozens of Mexican cities since 2002. But broadcasting that format from a town shaped by railroads, smelters and revolutionary-era history gives the station a backdrop that most LOS40 affiliates elsewhere in the country simply don't have.