‘Blooming and feisty’ ETC to end ops after 18 years

The channel was the local home to ‘American Idol’, ‘Glee’, ‘The Vampire Diaries’, ‘Gossip Girl’, among many others.

After weeks of teasing an upcoming rebrand of ETC, Solar Entertainment — the owner of the free TV station — finally bared its plans last June 6 on the channel’s future. In its place, 2 new channels will be created and expected to begin airing on Monday, June 20, 2022.

First up, ETC’s channel space on free TV is set to be taken over by the new Tagalog movie and general entertainment channel ‘Solar Flix‘. Solar Flix is expected to be exclusive for free-to-air audience for 3 weeks before it becomes available to pay television on July 11, 2022.

Meanwhile, ETC’s pay television feed will then be replaced by Jungo TV’s horror movie channel named ‘Scream Flix‘ beginning Monday. If you think that sounds familiar, then you’re right. Scream Flix is also the name of the horror movie block on Hallypop, which Jungo has been operating locally in association with GMA Network.

Before ETC enters the history books, let’s take a trip down memory lane.

Launched in 2004, ETC was first bore the sub-name Entertainment Central. It was Solar’s second attempt at creating an all-day entertainment channel, with their eponymous SEC having been rebranded in 2002 to give way to the Solar Sports channel. At that time, ETC was also only exclusive to pay television like the rest of Solar’s portfolio of channels.

Information about ETC’s programming at launch is sparse, but that included the locally-produced lifestyle-reality show Rated Oh! with Sam Oh, foreign imports Nip/Tuck, One Tree Hill, The OC, among many others.

The boom in the interest for foreign shows, particularly for more Western shows, during the height of the so-called network wars over at ABS-CBN and GMA (where both competed by producing high-budgeted local fantasy dramas), led to the creation of ETC 2nd Avenue in 2005. That didn’t last long, though, as in 2007, ETC 2nd Avenue became separate entity and dropped ETC from its name.

In 2008, Solar signed a blocktime agreement with several UHF TV stations, including SBN channel 21. Under the agreement with SBN, the network will carry ETC. With that, ETC effectively became a direct competition for the first time for GMA and ZOE’s QTV channel 11 and ABS-CBN’s Studio 23.

The following year, in late 2009, ETC officially rebranded into a young, female-centric station, in time for the launch of the general entertainment channel Solar TV on RPN 9. During this era, Project Runway Philippines, Glee, Gossip Girls, and The Vampire Diaries became some of the anchor shows for the UHF station.

In 2011, Solar decided to shake things up their free TV assets. Solar TV on RPN 9 was closed down, while ETC became a VHF station and was moved from SBN 21 to channel 9. Talk TV was then created to fill channel 21’s airtime. The ‘Young and Loving It!’ tagline was also launched a few months after the transfer.

A few months after the move to Nine, ETC bagged the rights to air American Idol after its previous broadcaster QTV (which was rebranded to GMA News TV that same year) ceased operations. Furthermore, the first AI season on ETC happens to be the one where Filipino-American Jessica Sanchez competed and eventually became the runner-up for the said season. Hence, it was also regarded as ETC’s most-successful year, if audience share is to be considered.

Anyway, ETC on RPN was also the first time in the channel’s history that it has aired local news programming. First, it was the RPN-produced NewsWatch. After that was axed due to the privatization of the network, Solar News was created and that was replaced by the Network News with Pia Hontiveros in June 2012.

In November 2013, though, ETC was reinstated to SBN 21. In exchange, then-Solar News Channel was brought to RPN 9. By the following year, ETC was retooled anew, ditching the 2009 logo in the process. In terms of programming, not much was changed during this time, with approximately 80-85% of the schedule devoted to foreign shows, while the remainder are local programs.

In late 2016, ETC was rebranded anew. This time, the logo mixed elements from the 2004 and 2009 logos. The new look was also in line with the changes over at other Solar channels like 2nd Avenue, Jack TV, and Solar Sports.

In 2017, ETC became the primary channel for the Miss Universe 2016 pageant in Manila. Apart from the main Coronation event, ETC also produced and aired a pre-pageant documentary series.

That same year, the channel also became the local coveror of the Grammy Awards and continued to do so for the two succeeding years.

On June 5, 2018, 2nd Avenue ceased airing after Solar and RJTV did not renew their contract. As a result, 2A shows like Ellen and Entertainment Tonight were moved to ETC.

In 2019, the channel ceased broadcasting on UHF as it migrated to full-time digital TV broadcasts. As of 2022, it is one of the handful stations in Metro Manila that have done the switch.

In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, most of ETC’s imports from the West have been slowly phased out from its schedule. Gone are the likes of American Idol, Ellen, The Bachelor/ette, and more. Instead, the channel began doubling down on British shows like Flirty Dancing and Guest Star, Turkish dramas Everywhere I Go, Endless Love, and Hayat, foreign films via ETC Flix and both classic and independent Filipino movies through ETCinema.

This change in direction was both refreshing and quite understandable. With the immense rise in the usage and demand for online streaming platforms during the first wave of the pandemic, channels like ETC — which were dependent to foreign programs — have to find alternatives and new niches to remain relevant in the challenging landscape of television. For ETC, those were the dizis and movies.

Unsurprisingly though, all that pivot in the past two years have led to the realization that keeping ETC as a brand is no longer the way moving forward. And here we are now: witnessing the last days of the storied, yet lowkey station in Philippine television.

So long and farewell, ETC.

ETC is still available on free TV in some areas, and in most pay TV operators nationwide until late Sunday evening or early Monday morning. Afterwards, Solar Flix will take over the DTT space (and on July 11, will also be added to pay TV), while Scream Flix will be offered exclusively to pay TV customers.