It is one of the Philippines’ first few homegrown cable channels.
On June 12, pay television movie channel Cinema One is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and to highlight the important occasion in its history, the channel has refreshed its long-running ‘Laging Kasama’ ident.
Kapamilya actor Piolo Pascual, who sang the original version with Toni Gonzaga back in 2014, returned to give his fresh take on the official station jingle of C1.
Pascual’s 30th anniversary version takes over from the previous edition that was recorded by Daniel Padilla, in 2019 to celebrate the channel’s 25th year.
LAGING KASAMA
Cinema One was originally launched as a channel named Sky 1 on June 12, 1994.
As Sky 1, it broadcasted Senate hearings and business news in the morning, and Tagalog movies from afternoon to evening.
Eventually, as ratings for the movie blocks proved the popularity of those, Sky Cable decided to remove the news content from Sky 1 and launched the Sarimanok Channel — which later became the ABS-CBN News Channel or ANC.
After four years, Sky relaunched the movie channel as Pinoy Blockbuster or PBC, an all-day local movie channel.
Former Cinema One channel head Ronald Arguelles recalled in a past ‘Inside The Cinema’ interview in 2019, the channel was dependent on the film library of Regal Films as the in-house ABS-CBN film outfit Star Cinema was only building its own in the ’90s.
Due to the success and popularity of PBC, ABS-CBN acquired the channel from its sister company Sky Cable in 2001.
It was in this move that Cinema One got its current name as suggested by former general manager Freddie M. Garcia.
The rebrand to Cinema One also reflected the channel’s repositioning to also cater to other markets, such as the premium A and B social classes.
As part of the relaunch, the movie channel also launched weekly original programs that would complement the movie blocks.
Some of these were ‘Cinema News,’ ‘Persona,’ ‘Cover Story,’ and ‘Review Night,’ among others.
In 2015, the channel took it up a notch when it embraced the scripted content genre when it aired the mini-series ‘Single/Single’ starring Shaina Magdayao and Matteo Guidicelli.
For a time, through its innovations and strong content library, Cinema One became the undisputed leading cable channel in the Philippines.
CINEMA ONE ORIGINALS
In 2005, the channel made a bold move when it stepped out of mainstream television to hold the inaugural ‘Cinema One Originals’ film festival, which chiefly focuses on giving platform to independent filmmakers to tell their stories through a financial grant system.
Memorable flicks developed for the film festival include ‘Confessional,’ ‘UPCAT,’ ‘Six Degrees Of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay,’ ‘That Thing Called Tadhana,’ ‘2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten,’ ‘Baka Bukas,’ and ‘Mamu, and a Mother Too’.
The lattermost of which starred Iyah Mina, which made history as the first transwoman to be ever given a Best Actress award in the history of Philippine cinema.
OUTSIDE SKY
After the closure of parent network ABS-CBN’s terrestrial operations on television and radio in 2020, Cinema One was also affected.
Its reach was reduced when the cease-and-desist order of the National Telecommunications Commission was extended to the operations of direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV operator Sky Direct.
At that point in time, Sky Direct had over a million subscribers.
To offset the loss, ABS-CBN began distributing the pay TV channels under its subsidiary Creative Programs, Inc. to erstwhile DTH platform rival Cignal TV.
Through this partnership, Cinema One and its sister channels under CPI like the Kapamilya Channel, Metro Channel, Myx, and CineMo became available to customers of Cignal and Satlite.
Cinema One also rapidly developed its presence on social media when it uploaded a plethora of local films from its library to its official YouTube channel.
At present, Cinema One has more than a million subscribers on the video-sharing platform.
Abroad, the international variant Cinema One Global has been available for subscribers of The Filipino Channel (TFC) since the mid-2000s.
C1 AT 30
30 years on, Cinema One has solidified its brand and cemented its legacy as a leader in both the local television and movie landscapes.
Cinema One is available on Sky Cable channel 56, Cignal channel 45, and on other pay TV providers in the Philippines. It is also on social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
Trendrod 