Channel 22, Mexico City's first UHF station, signed on April 15, 1982, as
XHTRM-TV, the principal station of Televisión de la República Mexicana (TRM). It was the first new television station in Mexico City since 1968, when channels 8 (
XHTM, operated by
Televisión Independiente de México) and 13 (
XHDF-TV, which was nationalized in 1972) went on the air. In 1983, TRM was absorbed into a new state broadcaster, the Instituto Mexicano de la Televisión. In 1985, Instituto Mexicano de la Televisión took on the name
Imevisión. All of the TRM repeater stations that had been constructed and relayed channel 22 were linked to Mexico City's newest television station,
XHIMT-TV channel 7. From XHIMT and XHDF, two new national networks, known as
Red Nacional 7 and
Red Nacional 13, were formed, and Mexico City's channel 22 was opened up to broadcast local programs. The station became known as
Cine Canal 22, changing its callsign to
XEIMT-TV, and introduced a programming schedule focused on movies. However, Canal 22 faced several uphill battles. As it was the first UHF station in the area, not all televisions could receive it, and its transmitter in
Ajusco did not offer enough power or height to cover the city. By the start of the 1990s, Imevisión was in rough shape. In September 1990, XEIMT and XHIMT began simulcasting XHDF for the entirety of the broadcast day. In January 1991, it was announced that channels 7 and 22 would be broken off from Imevisión. Many in the Mexican cultural scene urged the government to convert one of the channels into a state-run cultural television station, a proposal accepted by the government months after. XEIMT ended its relationship with Imevisión in December 1991, leaving the air. The next year, the government announced the sale of the remainder of Imevisión, including the 7 and 13 networks;
Televisión Azteca would buy both networks, creating its
Azteca 7 and
Azteca 13 networks from their infrastructure. In March 1993, XEIMT returned to air with test signals from a new transmitter location,
Cerro del Chiquihuite, which offered vastly improved coverage of the Mexico City area. On June 23, 1993, with an address from President
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Canal 22 officially reopened under the auspices of Conaculta (the National Council for Culture and the Arts) and concessionaire Televisión Metropolitana. (XEIMT operates under a commercial concession and is one of three noncommercial television stations in Mexico to do so.) In 2001, Enrique Strauss, a highly regarded figure in the production of cultural television in Mexico, became the new director general of the station. Under Strauss, new infrastructure and programming were rolled out, improving the channel's quality. Jorge Volpi was its president from 2007 to 2012. During this period, the network accelerated its digitization process, while also granting two subchannels (22.2 and 22.3); on the programming side, Volpi himself was responsible for 221 new programs. In March 2009, Canal 22 started its social media profiles. On December 12, 2011, the channel premiered a children's programming block for the first time. The block, named
Clic Clac, features mostly European animated and live-action series as well as cultural segments produced by the channel. In 2015, Conaculta was transformed into the Secretariat of Culture, a larger agency. At the same time, it acquired control of
Radio Educación, which had previously been part of the SEP. In 2016, Canal 22,
Canal Once and
Una Voz con Todos, along with the state networks, shared the broadcasting rights to the
2016 Summer Olympics, which aired exclusively on public television. ==Terrestrial television==