The Filipino Channel, commonly known as TFC, is a global subscription television network based in Daly City, California with studio in Redwood City, California and offices in Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, UAE, Ethiopia, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Europe, Mexico, Middle East, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom. It is owned and operated by the Filipino media conglomerate ABS-CBN Corporation. Its programming is composed primarily of imported programs from the ABS-CBN television network.
TFC is available globally on direct-to-home satellite, cable, IPTV, online streaming, video on demand and on other over-the-top content platforms. TFC is targeted to the Filipino diaspora, and was launched on September 24, 1994, becoming the world's first trans-Pacific Asian broadcaster.
As of 2016, The Filipino Channel has over three million subscribers worldwide in over 40 countries across 4 continents, most of whom are in the United States, Middle East, Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan.
While TFC traces its origins to 1994, the idea of broadcasting television programming via satellite to the millions of the Filipino diaspora everywhere in the world was an innovative idea that the then ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation (now ABS-CBN Corporation) took in the late 1980s, just as it began its road of reconstuction after the brutal and infamous years of Martial Law and the post-Martial Law era. As the network in 1989 began to become once more the Philippines' leading television network, the network finally made the bold step to begin satellite transmissions to Filipinos abroad when in the fall of that very year, ABS-CBN programs were broadcast via satellite to the Northern Mariana Islands, especially to the Filipino families living in Guam and Saipan, making it the first ever Philippine television network to broadcast to viewers outside the country via satellite.
On September 24, 1994, ABS-CBN, through its newly established subsidiary ABS-CBN International, signed a historic deal with the PanAmSat to bring the first trans-Pacific Asian programming service to some two million Filipino immigrants in the United States using the then-newly launched PAS 2 satellite. The following day, TFC was officially launched, first as a cable only network serving millions of Filipino Americans countrywide.
The first headquarters of TFC was built in a garage in Daly City, California with only eight employees doing all the tasks from managing the phones, the computers, and the like. By 1995, TFC has grown to 25,000 subscribers in the United States. Airings of Mara Clara and other programming aired during the daytime and night in 1997 Esperanza and Mula Sa Puso where the biggest programs on TFC
In 1996, TFC Direct! was launched, an independently operated direct-to-home television service that incorporates the TV channels Sarimanok News Network (now ABS-CBN News Channel), Pinoy Blockbuster Channel (now Cinema One), Pinoy Central (later renamed as Kapamilya Channel, then it was replaced by Bro, and now it was replaced again by ABS-CBN Sports + Action (S+A)), and the radio channels DZMM Radyo Patrol 630 and WRR 101.9 For Life! (now MOR 101.9).
By 2004, TFC has grown to 250,000 subscribers in the United States. This growth led to the expansion of TFC to other territories in the world.
In 2005, ABS-CBN International signed an affiliation agreement with DirecTV, one of the leading DTH providers in the United States. Under the deal, DirecTV has the exclusive right to distribute the TFC package on its DTH platform. In return, DirecTV will pay license fees to ABS-CBN and to ABS-CBN International. Later that year, the now defunct and award-winning internet television service TFC Now! was launched. This was later replaced by TFC.tv video streaming website. In this year, ABS-CBN International acquired San Francisco International Gateway from Loral Space & Communications. SFIG is a telecommunications port company based in Richmond, California. SFIG provides satellite communications services through its 2.5 acre (1 hectare) facility consisting of 19 satellite dish antennas and 9 modular equipment buildings. ABS-CBN International received Federal Communications Commission licensing approval in April 2006. Also in this year, ABS-CBN International opened its state-of-the-art studio and office in Redwood City, California. In 2006, SFIG successfully handled the pay per view distribution to In Demand and DirecTV for the Manny Pacquiao vs. Oscar Larios super featherweight championship title fight. SFIG's customers include Discovery Communications, CBS, ESPN, Playboy among others. SFIG is a member of the World Teleport Association.
In 2007, ABS-CBN International launched Myx (now Myx TV), the first and only television channel in the United States that is targeted to the Asian-American youth audience. As of 2011, TFC has over 2.47 million subscribers worldwide, Same Year, TFC Was Change 2nd New Logo. As of 2015, The Filipino Channel has over three million subscribers worldwide most of which are in United States, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, Africa, Canada and Southeast Asia (Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan).
It is the only Philippine-based cable network worldwide to be broadcast in high definition to date.
