TVCine originally began life as a Portuguese version of the Brazilian premium channels
Telecine in 1998, only consisting of two channels at the time. One dedicated to more recent films, Telecine 1, while the other was dedicated to older films, Telecine 2. The two channels airesd 1,200 titles, a quarter of which (300) were premmieres. On June 1, 2001, Telecine 1 was renamed Telecine Premium and Telecine 2, Telecine Gallery. Ahead of the change, the two channels had 140,000 subscribers, a number that Premium TV thought was "above expectations". On August 23, 2002, it opened an online store, where subscribers could buy up to four DVD releases a month. The channels were eventually fully acquired by the theatrical Portuguese distributor Cinemas Lusomundo (now
NOS Audiovisuais) and on 1 June 2003 the channels were rebranded as Canais Lusomundo. Telecine 1 became Lusomundo Premium and Telecine 2 became Lusomundo Gallery. With this change, the channels were now produced entirely in Portugal, which also included
35mm, a magazine program about news from the movie world, as well as more up-to-date premieres of the latest titles. On April 16, 2004, a third channel was launched as Lusomundo Action dedicated to action and horror movies. Most titles seen were from the second half of the 90s. Large-scale action movies continued to premiere on Lusomundo Premium. In 2005 a fourth channel was added as Lusomundo Happy, dedicated to movies that were more family friendly and more emotional. Following the launch of Fox and Fox Life on TV Cabo, Lusomundo signed a contract with
20th Century Fox, valid from June 2005. With these developments, TV Cabo claimed that the ensemble of the Lusomundo channels had an estimated 250,000 to 270,000 subscribers. The TVCine brand was launched on 1 November 2007, replacing the
Lusomundo branding of the channels. In May 2009 they started to broadcast in
16:9 24-hours a day, instead of the old
4:3 format. As of 1 September 2015
TVSéries has granted
HBO series exclusivity in Portugal and has adopted
"Home of HBO" as its tagline, until the closure of the channel on 14 January 2020 following the launch of HBO Portugal, which would eventually become
HBO Max. ERC received a request for a TVCine Fear channel on April 8, 2025. == Channels ==