As early as 1999, when the Canal del Congreso was being launched, Congress looked into the possibility of putting it on broadcast television. Congress did not begin to build out the station until January 2012, when it signed a pact with
Canal 22 under which Canal 22 would provide technical infrastructure and services to XHHCU. The arrangement would generate considerable cost savings. The final delay, as of May 2014, was negotiations with the borough of
Gustavo A. Madero to install a transmitter on
Cerro del Chiquihuite. The Congress eventually planned to sign on additional broadcast transmitters to extend Canal del Congreso's over-the-air reach; however, the primary avenue of broadcast expansion has since been changed to
SPR transmitters. Ultimately, XHHCU, after years of planning, came to air with Canal del Congreso programming on July 16, 2015; the station formally launched on August 6, 2015. In 2016, Congress received its own land parcel on Cerro del Chiquihuite which will allow it to stop renting space and equipment from Canal 22. The new transmitter facility and tower was dedicated on March 7, 2018. In June 2018, the IFT approved the frequency channel change of XHHCU-TDT to physical channel 18, which was carried out on September 7 of that year. The station kept its nationwide assigned virtual channel, 45.1. == Digital subchannels ==