SolarFlix (formerly Entertainment Central or ETC and visually rendered in its current logo in all

capital letters Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''#Majuscule, majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally ''#Minuscule, minuscule'') in the written representation of certain langua ...

) is a

Philippine The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

owned by the

Southern Broadcasting Network Southern Broadcasting Network, Inc. (SBN) is a Media in the Philippines, Filipino media company based in Mandaluyong, Philippines. SBN is a subsidiary of Solar Entertainment Corporation, a Filipino-owned television company managed by the Tieng ...

subsidiary of

Solar Entertainment Corporation Solar Entertainment Corporation (also known as Solar Entertainment, and simply known as Solar or SEC) is a Mass media in the Philippines, Filipino Mass media, media company based in Makati, Philippines. Founded and owned by the brothers, Wilso ...

. Its digital free-to-air broadcast is carried by SBN's flagship station,

DWCP-DTV DWCP-DTV (channel 21) is a television station in Metro Manila, Philippines, serving as the flagship of the SolarFlix network. The station is owned by Southern Broadcasting Network through its licensee and subsidiary of Solar Entertainment Co ...

(channel 21) in

Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila ( ), commonly shortened to Metro Manila and formally the National Capital Region (NCR; ), is the capital region and largest List of metropolitan areas in the Philippines, metropolitan area of the Philippines. Located ...

. The channel's analog broadcast is fed on its lone provincial TV station,

DXSS-TV Southern Broadcasting Network, Inc. (SBN) is a Media in the Philippines, Filipino media company based in Mandaluyong, Philippines. SBN is a subsidiary of Solar Entertainment Corporation, a Filipino-owned television company managed by the Tieng ...

(channel 7) in

Davao City Davao City, officially the City of Davao, is a City of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Davao Region, Philippines. The city has a total land area of , making it the List of Philippine cities and municipalities ...

(in which the station currently carries DepEd ALS TV programming). The channel is also carried by cable and satellite providers, including

Sky Cable Sky Cable (stylized as SKYcable) is a cable television service of Sky Cable Corporation in the Philippines. It covers areas across the country with both digital and analog cable services, and it has 700,000 subscribers, controlling 45% of th ...

Destiny Cable Destiny Cable (formerly Global Destiny Cable and stylized as DESTINY CABLE) was a direct-to-home cable television subscription service based in Quezon City. Destiny Cable was the 2nd largest cable TV provider in the Philippines. It was owned by ...

, Vision/FiberTV,

Planet Cable Streamtech Systems Technologies, Inc. is a Philippine telecommunications company. Founded by Manuel Paolo A. Villar (son of real estate magnate and politician Manuel Villar Jr.), it offers communication services such as fiber to the home, inte ...

Cablelink Cablelink (formerly known as Conception Pay TV Network) is a subscription-based cable antenna television system operator and broadband Internet service provider in the Philippines which commenced its CATV operation in 1995. It is owned and opera ...

, Binangonan Cable TV Corporation,

Cignal Cignal (pronounced as ''signal'') is a Philippine satellite television and IPTV provider, owned by Cignal TV Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the MediaQuest Holdings Inc. under the PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund. Cignal's prepaid electroni ...

, SatLite, and

G Sat G-Sat (''Global Satellite'') is a subscription-based direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television service commercially available in the Philippines. G-Sat is owned by Global Satellite Technology Services (GSTS), registered in the Philippines wi ...

along with various provincial cable operators and through online streaming. SolarFlix operates daily from 8 a.m. to 12 midnight on Solar's digital free TV (under test broadcast), while it operates 24 hours daily on most pay TV and streaming service providers. However, starting Holy Week 2021, it continues to sign off from

Maundy Thursday Maundy Thursday, also referred to as Holy Thursday, or Thursday of the Lord's Supper, among other names,The day is also known as Great and Holy Thursday, Holy and Great Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Sheer Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries. is ...

at midnight to

Easter Sunday Easter, also called Pascha (Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek language, Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, de ...

at 8:00 a.m. along with its sister channels

Solar Sports Solar Sports is a Philippines, Philippine Digital television, digital free-to-air television network based in Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong, Philippines. It serves as the flagship network of Southern Broadcasting Network, a subsidiary of Solar En ...

Shop TV Shop TV (currently stylized in all uppercase) is a 24-hour shopping related TV channel owned by Solar Entertainment Corporation.His ...

and

Solar Learning Solar Learning is a Philippine educational UHF television channel which broadcasts as a relay feed of the DepEd TV programming service. It is owned by Solar Entertainment Corporation in partnership with the Department of Education (DepEd). ...

. It formerly operated daily from 5:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight on free-to-air analog TV broadcast until September 2019, when SBN permanently closed its analog signal. SolarFlix broadcasts from Solar's master control facility and studios located on the Third Floor of the Worldwide Corporate Center, Epifanio de Los Santos corner

Shaw Boulevard Shaw Boulevard (formerly known as Jose Rizal Boulevard and Pasig Boulevard; commonly known as Crossing) is a 4-8 lane highway connecting the cities of Mandaluyong and Pasig in the Philippines. The boulevard is named after William James Shaw, fou ...

Mandaluyong Mandaluyong ( ; ), officially the City of Mandaluyong (, ), is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly-urbanized city in the Metro Manila, National Capital Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a popula ...

, while the Solar office is located at Solar Century Tower, 100 Tordesillas St., Corner H.V. Dela Costa St. Salcedo Village,

Makati Makati ( ; ), officially the City of Makati (), is a highly urbanized city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines, known for being one of the leading financial centers in the country. As of 2013, the city has the highest concent ...

, SBN holds free-to-air broadcasts from its transmitter and tower site located at Nuestra Señora de la Paz Subdivision, Bo. Sta. Cruz,

Antipolo Antipolo, officially the City of Antipolo (), is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, component city and capital of the Provinces of the Philippines, province of Rizal (province), Rizal, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, ...

Rizal Rizal most commonly refers to: * Rizal (province), a province of the Philippines * José Rizal, Filipino national hero whom the province is named after Rizal may also refer to: People * Akmal Rizal Ahmad Rakhli, Malaysian footballer * Atep Ri ...

History

As ETC (2004–2022)

On March 1, 2004, ETC was launched as "Entertainment Central". But the test broadcast started on November 24, 2003. On January 1, 2008, ETC ceased to air over

as a separate channel. As part of the Solar network's block time agreements with various terrestrial channels, the channel started airing over SBN 21, a terrestrial

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

TV station in the Philippines. On March 2, 2011, ETC moved to RPN after the channel is private, while Talk TV, a news-oriented channel airing local and US news shows, launched on SBN 21. But, ETC returned to SBN on November 30, 2013, as

Solar News Channel Solar News Channel (SNC) was a major commercial television network in the Philippines, owned by Solar Entertainment Corporation's arm television subsidiary of Solar Television Network lease with its owner by Radio Philippines Network. Its fl ...

moved to RPN on December 1 of 2013 to allow SNC's wider coverage. (SNC and RPN, however, were sold to the ALC Group of Companies chair, Ambassador Antonio Cabangon Chua, in August 2014, due to Tieng's loss of revenue after investing in RPN.) After its sister channel 2nd Avenue ended broadcasting on June 5, 2018, after 12 years of broadcasting, many of its programs moved to ETC. On November 21, 2018, ETC revealed its new station ID and on-air graphics. At the same time, the network also launched its new slogans, ''In Full Bloom'' and ''#IamETC''. On May 25, 2020, ETC began broadcasting in anamorphic 16:9 aspect ratio on free-to-air digital television. The change allowed for a widescreen presentation, optimizing the viewing experience for viewers with compatible widescreen televisions.

As SolarFlix (2022–present)

On June 7, 2022, a new channel was teased featuring a voice-over saying, ''"May bagong kakaaliwan ngayong July. Kaya tutok lang. Sagot ka namin!"'' (). On June 16, 2022, ETC unveiled the new channel which was relaunched as SolarFlix on July 11, 2022, at 6 pm (PST), a Tagalog movie channel that features classic and independent Filipino films (most of which came from Solar Films' archives), and documentaries from local movie festivals similar to

GMA Network GMA Network (an acronym of its legal name, Global Media Arts and commonly known as GMA) is a Television in the Philippines, Philippine commercial broadcast network, serving as the flagship property of publicly traded GMA Network (company), ...

's ''

I Heart Movies I Heart Movies (stylized as i ❤ movies) is a Philippine free-to-air television channel owned and operated by GMA Network Inc. The channel was on test broadcast from March 22 to 31, 2021, and was officially launched on April 5, 2021. It oper ...

''. Following the rebrand, Solar Entertainment Corporation announced to some cable and satellite TV operators carrying ETC that the channel will be replaced by ''ScreamFlix'' of Jungo TV, which carries Front Row Channel and Hallypop (the latter is formerly broadcast as a digital subchannel on GMA Network) on June 20, 2022.

Programming

The channel targets the young adult demographics. SolarFlix's programming currently consists of Turkish dramas and Latin American telenovelas dubbed in Filipino under the ETCerye block, classic and independent Filipino films, and Hollywood and foreign-acquired movies.

Relay and affiliate stations

Ratings

According to National Urban Television Audience Measurement, ETC is the top-ranked female television channel with cable and free TV ratings combined (January 2012 - May 2012) with a 10.33% audience share.

References

External links

Media Ownership Monitor Philippines - Television
by VERA Files and

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{{Authority control Southern Broadcasting Network Radio Philippines Network Solar Entertainment Corporation channels Television networks in the Philippines Filipino-language television stations Movie channels in the Philippines Television channels and stations established in 2004 2003 establishments in the Philippines Television channels and stations established in 2022