It was the second television station to come to air in Mexico and built on the tradition of the successful and influential XEW-AM 900.

The station came on air with its studios, known as Televicentro, still under development; these did not open formally until January 1952.

[3] It was not until 1982 that XEW, now the keystone of a national network, took on the name Canal de las Estrellas (Channel of the Stars).

The station's digital channel carries one program stream: XEW-TV, alongside other television stations in Mexico City, discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, at 12:00 a.m. on December 17, 2015, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.

The change occurred in April 2017, including a brief period in which both facilities operated at the same time.