Across the days of La 1, cinema programming resembled a community film club. That memory surfaces whenever someone speaks of + que cine, in Information TV, or during discussions with Gonzalo Eulogio. People grew up with cycles honoring the greats, directors and actors alike, all shown in prime time. The UHF dial belonged to those who truly cared about cinema. It was a space for black and white films made before 1930, aired with surprising normality at times that were easy to access. The case of La clave will not be discussed here, as it would drift from the topic.
La 1 aired titles from home video collections on Sundays, such as Wonder Woman (2020) and The Notebook (2004). Yet the issue runs deeper. When La 1 launched series like La ley del mar and Zorro, two consecutive Sundays of Versión española on La 2 were removed from the schedule. That container promotes Spanish cinema by pairing recent films with a half hour discussion featuring members of the production team. The move aimed to prevent the current Spanish film from drawing viewers away from those series. Still, Zorro proved a sizable failure, and its final two episodes ended up airing in the middle of the night.
Considering the long Christmas break and the fact that Versión española talks take a break from the San Juan week until the San Sebastián Festival, the space should have remained sacred to programmers if TVE truly collaborated with Spanish cinema. Yet in practice, it is clear that interests often take precedence and steer the schedule away from a strict cinema-centered mission. [Source attribution: TVE archives]