The Telegraph Museum was the ideal venue to announce the launch of TV Migrante, a new open television channel dedicated entirely to honoring, dignifying and recognizing Mexicans who, for various reasons, decided to emigrate and settle in other lands, without forgetting their roots.
TV Migrante can be viewed in 25 cities, including Mexico City, and on streaming for public media on channels 14.3, 14.2 and 16.2.
Jenaro Villamil, head of the Mexican State Public Broadcasting System (Sistema Público de Radiodifusión del Estado Mexicano, SPR), presented this new public service channel, saying that the migrant cultural empire of Mexicans needed its own space.
“This migrant cultural empire of Mexicans needs a television channel; a channel to dignify all of us who emigrate,” he told the media on Friday, March 21.
Villamil said the community television channel is collaborative and will be enriched by the content produced by the migrants themselves. He added that this is not a commercial channel, nor does it seek to sell advertising space, but rather to disseminate the image, message and production of Mexican migrant communities.
TV Migrante is also being launched as a public television channel after three years as a digital channel within the Public Broadcasting System, and will continue as a hybrid space, that is, with both a digital and an aerial output.
“This initiative, which emerged to defend the dignity of our fellow countrymen, now aims to be their main instrument to demonstrate why this cultural empire that is Mexican identity will not be defeated by racists, deportations, or the outdated delusions of those who want to take away even the name of the Gulf of Mexico,” Villamil said.
TV Migrante, in its first phase, will be broadcast in 25 cities in Mexico, while, in phase two, which could be as early as 2025, 11 more cities will be added to make a total of 36 cities.
In turn, it is intended that TV Migrante be broadcast this same year by cable television companies in cities in the United States, where more than 30 million Mexicans live.
The head of SRP emphasized that this new open channel also seeks to pay tribute to all those immigrants who send more than USD $60 billion a year in remittances.
TV Migrante will be the space, he said, to distribute and broadcast content in all the states of the Republic and will be fed with content from states such as Oaxaca, Puebla, Zacatecas, Veracruz, Yucatán, Estado de México, Guanajuato, Nuevo León, Michoacán, and Chiapas, among others.
“Migrating is not a crime; migrating is courageous. Migrating is enriching and being enriched by other cultures. Migrating is a new global dignity and we will always defend that,” said Villamil.
Tatiana Clouthier, Director of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME) and who was a sponsor at the launch of the open channel of TV Migrante, stressed that this new space opened the door to greater communication with the entire diaspora throughout the United States and in other corners of the world.
“This channel plays a fundamental role. The countries where we have the greatest representation of Mexicans today are the United States, Canada, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Argentina, and we could say, I have no doubt, that all the Mexican brothers and sisters who are there will be an important part of listening and being listened to through this medium. TV Migrante plays and will play a fundamental role through the public system,” she stressed.
She also recognized the effort to give a voice to those who are in different parts of the world, and stressed that this channel will give a different face to migration and a different way of listening.
“The wealth we have as a nation is not in vain and that is why Mexico is in fashion… I believe that this channel comes to rediscover who we have been, to highlight the great contributions made by Mexicans not only in our country but in other parts of the world,” she added.
In her turn, Rocío Mejía Flores, General Director of Finance for Bienestar (Finabien), who was also a sponsor of the launch, recalled that Mexico is the second largest recipient of remittances after India, having received almost USD $65 billion last year, and that of all remittances worldwide, 7.2% are received by Mexico.
He also explained that Mexicans are a fundamental part of the US economy, recognizing the importance of this new channel opening to publicize the benefits that Finabien has for all immigrants in the United States.
“It is very important for us to have access to this channel because it will allow us to be closer to the migrant community. It will allow us to publicize the actions we are developing at Finabien, to have our own space, to act as a link and to make available all the services we have precisely to serve the migrant community”.
The General Director of the new channel TV Migrante, Emerson Segura Valencia, pointed out that TV Migrante was born as an informative program three years ago. However, the current situation allowed it to become a public space for collaboration with an open signal, in addition to being a digital platform.
He added that for a long time, migrants have been the target of attacks, persecution and stigmatization in different media, spaces and positions, which is why the media has a fundamental role to play when it comes to addressing issues of migration and human mobility.
Segura Valencia explained that immigrants are not just numbers, statistics, remittances or economic data, but faces, history and families.
“Migrants are not just a labor force. They are not just a workforce. They are a transforming force of creativity. Jenaro told me: it is the situation; it is the moment and it is the cause.’ And it is precisely the migrant cause that brings us here today and that is why we are very happy and I am very glad that we can share this and that is why it is important that TV Migrante is made by the public media because it is a medium with a cause.”
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