XHDTV-TDT (channel 49) is a television station in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico, affiliated with Milenio Televisión and serving the Tijuana–San Diego international metropolitan area. The station's license and transmitter are owned by Mexican company Televisora Alco, which is 40% owned by station operator Entravision Communications; XHDTV is a sister station to Entravision-owned Univision affiliate KBNT-CD (channel 17), UniMás affiliate KDTF-LD (channel 36) and Azteca América affiliate XHAS-TDT (channel 33). All four stations share studios on Ruffin Road in the Kearny Mesa section of San Diego, California, United States; XHDTV's transmitter is located on Cerro Bola, within the municipality of Tecate. Despite no longer carrying American content, XHDTV continues to be carried on channel 13 by San Diego Cox systems on the U.S. side of the market; the station is also carried in Tijuana on Izzi channel 49.
As it is licensed by the Mexican government, XHDTV is not covered under the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s must carry rules. This means that local cable providers in the San Diego market are not required to carry the station, even if it requests to be carried under this provision. However, the station must be carried by Mexican pay-TV providers in the Tijuana viewing area.
History
UPN affiliation
The station first signed on the air on 1 November 1999 as XHUPN-TV, more than a year after Alco received its concession on 2 July 1998. Operated as an English-language commercial station since its debut (the second such Baja California-licensed station in the San Diego–Tijuana market to operate in this manner, after XETV (channel 6)), it originally served as the market's UPN affiliate, which brought that network's programming back to the market just over a year after charter affiliate KUSI-TV (channel 51) dropped UPN due to the network's low viewership locally and reverted to being an independent station in 1998. In the interim, UPN programming was brought in out-of-market from KCOP-TV, the network's owned-and-operated station in Los Angeles, on San Diego area cable providers. When XHUPN went on the air, the station asked those cable providers to drop KCOP from their lineups. Thereafter, XHUPN adopted the "UPN 13" moniker; while XHUPN was the station's official callsign as licensed by the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT), it used the fictional and abbreviated callsign "XUPN" on-air.
MyNetworkTV affiliation
On 24 January 2006, Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that they would shut down The WB and UPN. The two networks would then have some of their programming folded into a single service, The CW. On that same date, The CW signed KSWB-TV (channel 69) as the network's San Diego charter affiliate as part of a ten-year affiliation agreement between the network and KSWB owner Tribune Broadcasting's 14 WB-affiliated stations at the time. After the merger was announced, XHUPN was initially expected to become an affiliate of Spanish-language network Telefutura; however on 18 March 2006, it was announced that XHUPN would instead become a charter affiliate of MyNetworkTV, another upstart network created by the Fox Entertainment Group subsidiary of News Corporation (the Telefutura affiliation instead went to KDTF-LP (channel 51)).
The station dropped all UPN references on-air soon afterward and simply called itself "Channel 13" and later "TV 13" (this same practice of stations dropping UPN branding following the announcement of The CW's launch had become common on UPN affiliates owned by News Corporation's Fox Television Stations unit). It also received SCT approval on 10 April 2006 to change its callsign to XHDTV-TV. UPN programming on XHDTV ended on 4 September, with the exception of WWE SmackDown, which aired on late Friday nights/early Saturday mornings after midnight for two weeks prior to The CW's launch. As a MyNetworkTV affiliate, the station branded as "XDTV MyTV 13", with "XDTV" serving as its new fictional and abbreviated callsign.