Radio Central de México, S.A., the concessionaire of XERED-AM, received a concession to operate an FM radio station in Mexico City in 1972. XHRED-FM launched in 1976, picking up a format previously heard on 1560 AM: "Radio VIP", programming and music in English. In the 1980s, the Spanish-language Monitor newscasts were added, airing simultaneously with XERED-AM. From 1987 to 1994, the station's callsign was changed to XHVIP-FM in reference to its name. In 1995, Radiodifusora Red—which, by this point, had grown to include XERED-AM, XHRED-FM, and XHRCA-FM 91.3 in Mexico City, as well as Radio Red repeaters in Guadalajara and Monterrey —was sold to Grupo Radio Centro. At this time 88.1 finally adopted the "Radio Red FM" name. The station continued to air the Monitor newscasts, now produced by Gutiérrez Vivó's company Infored, alongside contemporary music in English and a nightly program focused on jazz, which ended in 2001. For media concentration reasons, Radio Centro sold two stations to Infored in 1998, with the stations relaunched in 2000. The two sides had a falling out, which in 2004 resulted in the end of the Monitor newscasts on Radio Red after 30 years. Radio Centro responded by increasing XHRED-FM's effective radiated power to 95 kW and expanding its own news offerings. In April 2013, the station dropped the "Radio" from its name.
Universal 88.1
On May 16, 2016, Red FM and Universal 92.1 swapped dial positions. Despite the name change, the station's callsign remains unchanged, and XERED-AM was still broadcast over its HD Radio subchannel. The Universal English classic hits format was created in 1974 on XEQR-FM. From April 9 to December 7, 2018, a morning newscast called "Sin anestesia" hosted by Carlos Loret de Mola was broadcast on the station, causing controversy among its listeners and lower ratings than its programming the year before. The newscast ended as Loret de Mola couldn't reach an agreement with GRC to continue it when GRC opted to consolidate its talk programming on a relaunched XERC-FM, which would have required the show to move to a new timeslot.
La Octava
As part of the launch of Radio Centro's TV station, XHFAMX-TDT, on October 31, 2019, Universal moved to XERC-FM and all the talk programming moved back to XHRED, which took the same "La Octava" name as the TV station. Not all programming on La Octava radio is a TV simulcast; the most notable of these exceptions is Carmen Aristegui's morning newscast, as Aristegui has a deal with CNN. Aside from news and talk programming, it also airs NFL games on Sundays during the league's season as well as soccer matches from Liga MX. Beginning February 10, 2020, the station added contemporary music in Spanish and English during non-news hours following the cancellation of several programs and the drop of looped reruns of their newscasts. On May 23, GRC announced that the Universal format would return to XHRED sharing airtime with three of La Octava's newscasts on weekdays beginning June 1. To compensate for the Universal format no longer being fully musical programming, an Internet stream known as "Universal Online" was launched on the same day.
