Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta

Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta (2 March 1895, Tampico, Tamaulipas – 23 September 1972, Mexico City) was a Mexican businessman who built an entertainment conglomerate.

This article uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Azcárraga and the second or maternal family name is Vidaurreta.

The son of Basque immigrants Mariano Azcárraga and Emilia Vidaurreta, his primary education was in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, middle school in San Antonio, Texas, and high school in Austin.

Early career

Aged 17, he was employed at a shoe store while he studied trade and economics by night.

He obtained distribution rights for a shoe store in Boston and, at age 23, he created the car distribution company, Azcárraga & Copland.

Radio broadcasting industry

In 1923 Azcárraga obtained a license to distribute radios from the Victor Talking Machine Company. Around the same time his brother Raúl Azcárraga Vidaurreta had created a radio station with Mexico City's newspaper El Universal. While working at the "Mexico Music" division of RCA) he became more interested in the radio broadcasting industry. On 19 March 1930 the radio station XET-AM was founded in Monterrey. And on September 18 Azcárraga created the XEW-AM with Mexico Music Corporation as major stockholder. The station was also part of the NBC division of RCA.

Television industry

Azcárraga Vidaurreta established Estudios Churubusco in the 1940s and created the first TV station in Mexico, Channel 2, in 1951. He became the first president of Telesistemas Mexicanos in 1955. His entertainment conglomerate was composed of 92 different business units by 1969. He died on 23 September 1972, before establishment of Televisa, S.A., a television production company on 1 January 1973.

Family

Emilio married Laura Milmo Hickman, daughter of Patricio Milmo Vidaurri, an American citizen, and Laura Hickman Morales, and granddaughter of Patricio Milmo O'Dowd (né Patrick Milmo (1826–1899); son of Darby and Sarah (née O'Dowd) Milmo of Lisaneena, Collooney, County Sligo, Ireland), a major stockholder in the Milmo National Bank of Laredo and his wife, María Prudenciana Vidaurri Vidaurri (a descendant of the Vásquez Borregos, who helped to found Laredo, Texas).[1]

Emilio Azcárraga and Laura Milmo had three children: Emilio, Laura, and Carmela. In 1899 Patricio Milmo and Sons was established as a bank to invest in such interests as railroads and mines. After the Mexican Revolution the company focused on safer investments, like the then-recently-developing radio industry.[1]

See also

References
  1. Patricio Milmo O'Dowd biodata
  • (in Spanish) Biography at the Revista Mexicana de Comunicación of the Manuel Buendía Foundation.
  • (in Spanish) Biography at the Salón del Empresario en México ("Entrepreneur Hall of Fame in Mexico").
  • (in Spanish) History of the XEW-AM.
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