In 1988 and 1989, a dispute opened between the US programmers and the Mexican concession holders. In January 1988, the Tijuana transmitter was toppled in a storm; it took nine months to build a new permanent tower, during which time XHRM's power was drastically cut and the station lost its national advertising accounts. The station's studio equipment also began to fail, which exacerbated its problems. The programmers ceased to pay their monthly fees in a last-ditch effort to get Radio Moderna Mexicana to bail them out.