Mexico’s internet penetration reached 86.1% among people aged six and over in 2025, or 104.9 million people, according to INEGI, the government statistics office. That’s double the 39.1% recorded a decade earlier. As digital adoption surges, television viewership has plummeted, and the sector’s concentration among a handful of owners has become acute enough to trigger a major financial crisis.
The numbers tell a stark story. Free-to-air television now reaches just 49.1% of the population, down 12 percentage points from 2020. Among those who still watch, daily consumption averages only 2.1 hours. Mobile phone use climbed 2.9 percentage points between 2024 and 2025, while television’s share fell 4 points over the same period. By 2025, streaming services appeared in 36.4% of Mexican households. Among smartphone users, 80.4% accessed social networks and 90.6% used messaging apps. The migration isn’t gradual. It’s accelerating.
The Concentration Problem
Reporters Without Borders identifies Mexico’s broadcasting sector, where extreme market concentration prevails, as one of the world’s most restrictive media structures. Televisa and TV Azteca dominate almost completely. Based in Mexico City and trading on both the Mexican Stock Exchange and through New York depositary shares, Grupo Televisa operates the izzi cable network and Sky satellite service. At the end of 2025, it reported 15.5 million residential paid services and 3.8 million satellite ones. Co-chief executives Alfonso de Angoitia Noriega and Bernardo Gómez Martínez control the sprawling operation.
TelevisaUnivision operates free-to-air channels including Las Estrellas and calls itself the world’s top Spanish-language media company. It owns Univision, the TUDN sports brand, and the ViX streaming service. Univision operates 59 owned or operated U.S. television stations. In September 2026, N+ Univision reached 14.6 million viewers. During the second quarter of 2026, TelevisaUnivision’s U.S. advertising fell 29%, though Mexican advertising lifted 23% to US$353 million on World Cup demand.
TV Azteca’s Debt Collapse
TV Azteca, owned by Grupo Salinas and founder Ricardo Salinas Pliego, faces existential financial pressures. The company operates four national channels—Azteca Uno, Azteca 7, adn Noticias and a más+—carried on more than 300 local stations. In July 2026, a federal judge declared it in concurso mercantil, a court-supervised debt restructuring that the company requested. The filing listed 1,970 debts worth 23.3 billion pesos, approximately US$1.27 billion. TV Azteca stopped paying its U.S. bonds five years ago, in 2021. U.S. creditors owed about US$630 million have sued in New York for four years, since 2022. In March 2026, with approval from the securities regulator CNBV, the company removed its shares from Mexico’s national securities registry. By September 2026, it sought U.S. court recognition of its Mexican restructuring under Chapter 15 of the bankruptcy code. The outcome remains entirely unclear, including whether creditors will gain control of the network or its broadcast concessions.
The newspaper sector has similar ownership concentration. Reporters Without Borders identifies Organización Editorial Mexicana (OEM) as the dominant force. OEM operates 32 dailies, 24 radio stations, and 45 websites. Other major players include El Universal, led by executive president Juan Francisco Ealy Ortiz; Grupo Reforma, which publishes the Mexico City daily Reforma and El Norte in Monterrey; Grupo Milenio, which publishes the national daily Milenio; and DEMOS, which publishes La Jornada.
Online-only outlets like Animal Político and Aristegui Noticias have emerged as alternatives. Reporters Without Borders says independent journalists increasingly publish directly on social media, entirely outside large media groups.
Government Regulatory Changes
Mexico replaced its former broadcast regulator, the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), with the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT) under a new telecoms and broadcasting law published on 16 July 2025. One year later, the Senate ratified its five commissioners on 14 October 2025, and the board held its first meeting on 21 October 2025. President Claudia Sheinbaum named Norma Solano Rodríguez as chair.
The CRT operates as an administrative body under the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency (ATDT), though the law gives the commission technical and operational independence. In August 2026, the CRT approved audience-rights rules requiring news and opinion to be separated and broadcasters to respond to viewer complaints. Violators face fines ranging from 0.1% to 1% of annual revenue. Solano rejected claims of censorship.
The CRT also runs a mandatory registry linking each mobile line to its registered user. On 5 October 2026, it reported temporarily suspending 2,248,143 lines ending in the digit 3 that hadn’t completed registration. How strictly the new commission will enforce these rules, or whether it will maintain independence from executive pressure, remains unclear.
Security and Press Freedom
Mexico’s constitution guarantees press freedom, and Reporters Without Borders says the country has no openly restrictive press laws. Yet violence poses a grave threat. RSF ranks Mexico 122nd of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 45.23 out of 100. Article 19, a free-expression group with a Mexico office, has documented 181 journalists killed since 2000 in possible connection with their work. RSF counted eight journalists killed in Mexico in 2026 as of early October. Photographer Ricardo Zúñiga was shot dead in Puebla state at the end of August. On 9 October 2026, gunmen killed Hamurabi Huesca Manzano, director of the news site Pinotepa Comunica, in Santiago Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca. Prosecutors said the attack presumably targeted a local crime figure.
President Claudia Sheinbaum, elected in 2024, regularly holds a televised morning press conference called the Mañanera del Pueblo in the National Palace. Reporters question her live. The event includes “El Detector de Mentiras” (the lie detector), a segment that rebuts reports the government calls false, airing Wednesdays with denials issued by the relevant ministry. In May 2026, Sheinbaum announced that she’d expand it into a weekly afternoon program. Reporters Without Borders says she’s adopted a less confrontational tone toward media while still criticizing coverage. That same month, TV Azteca accused her of urging Mexicans not to watch it, calling this an attempt to censor critical media.
Why This Matters:
Mexico’s media upheaval presents several interconnected challenges. Television’s rapid decline as a revenue source is destroying traditional broadcasters’ business models—TV Azteca’s restructuring represents the visible collapse of a debt-laden sector built on declining viewership. A handful of companies control newspaper ownership, making market consolidation rather than competitive entry likely to define Mexico’s print future. The shift to digital platforms and social media creates opportunities for independent journalism but also drains revenue from established newsrooms, raising questions about sustainability. The new CRT’s broad authority over content, combined with government access to a mandatory mobile-line registry and expanded “lie detector” segments, raises legitimate concerns about how regulatory independence will function in practice. Investors face uncertainty: Grupo Televisa remains profitable through pay-TV and broadband, but TV Azteca creditors face years of restructuring. For audiences and journalists, the central question remains whether Mexico’s regulatory transition strengthens or compromises press freedom in a country where 28 journalists have gone missing since 2000 and collusion between local officials and organized crime poses documented threats.