Updated 11:10am Eastern, April 27
In July 2014, Univision Radio made waves across La Gran Manzana by dropping the Luis Jimenez Show from its Tropical-infused Latin Contemporary WXNY-FM “X96.3” in New York, the former New York Times-owned Classical WQXR. Jimenez’s show had been syndicated by Univision Radio, a move that transpired after his highly publicized exit from Spanish Broadcasting System. He had been on X96.3 since its 2009 debut.
On March 13, 2017, Jimenez returned to WXNY. That arrangement abruptly ended 10 days ago.
Univision Radio late Thursday responded to RBR+TVBR‘s request for comment by noting that WXNY is “providing listeners with a music block of the latest hits along with news, weather and traffic.” The station’s website states that DJ Chris Mambo is now helming the 5am-11am time slot; the station is hostless until the 3pm arrival of “El Jangueo,” a personality-driven afternoon program.
That will end Monday. A Univision spokesperson said, “We continuously evaluate our content and programming to best serve our audience, including launching new shows like La Bella & El Duro with Francisca Lachapel and Brea Frank in midday, which premieres on April 30.”
Francisca Antonia Lachapel is a Dominican actress, TV host, and beauty pageant titleholder, who was crowned Nuestra Belleza Latina 2015 in April 2015. She is currently a co-host on the Univision network morning chat show ¡Despierta América!
Lachapel will be retaining her TV duties while adding a radio role that sees her co-hosting with Frank, most recently a DJ and TV host in the Dominican Republic who is joining Univision for this show. He is relocating from Santo Domingo.
Word first trickled out of New York about Jimenez’s exit on April 16, via tweets to Jimenez from WXNY listeners unhappy about the abrupt discontinuation of his live show.
RBR+TVBR has confirmed that live broadcasts on Jimenez’s LuisNetwork.com are now being aired from 7am-10am Eastern; they had been in the afternoons following his WXNY live morning show. Access to LuisNetwork broadcasts is for paid subscribers, at a rate of $5.99 per month or $50 annually. However, the Twitter feed for LuisNetwork includes links to YouTube feeds of his show for on-demand listening on a one-day delay.
Jimenez is one of the most successful air personalities to work in New York, and arguably the top Spanish-language voice to air in the nation’s No. 1 market. As host of Mega 97.9’s El Vacilón de la Mañana, he rocketed to fame in the 1990s, achieving strong ratings against the likes of Howard Stern, Elvis Duran, and Scott Shannon.
He was absent from New York airwaves for a year after his exit from SBS, reemerging at WXNY predecessor WCAA-FM 105.9 in 2008.
Additionally, Jimenez’s program aired from February to June 2015 on SBS’s Latin Contemporary WPAT-FM “93.1 Amor” in New York — tied to a failed syndication effort through SBS’s Aire Radio Networks to air an “uncensored” risque broadcast titled Sin Censura con Luis Jimenez. The exit was less than amicable, with Jimenez noting on Twitter that SBS management were “Hitler wannabes.” This led Jimenez to launch the Luis Network.
In recent years, Jimenez popularity waned as his one-time home of WSKQ continued to dominate in the ratings. In the February 2018 Nielsen Audio ratings for New York, WSKQ had a 4.7 audience share. Among Hispanic stations, WXNY was third behind WSKQ sibling WPAT-FM, with a 1.6 share. Former affiliate WTLQ-FM “977 Latino” in Fort Myers-Naples, Fla., now airs the syndicated morning show hosted by iHeartRadio‘s Enrique Santos.
Calls to Jimenez by RBR+TVBR were not answered.
