Christmas in Pampanga is a holiday steeped in tradition. Between the customary noche buena with all the Kapampangan cuisine favorites, the Simbang Gabi, and groups of carolers serenading families from home to home, the rituals run the gamut.
One of the Kapampangans’ most time-honored Christmas traditions has been around for the better part of a century and attracts millions of viewers both in person and on television screens in Central Luzon and the rest of the country.
The Giant Lantern Festival is held each year with eight to 10 participating barangays from the City of San Fernando, Pampanga, featuring giant lanterns up to 20 feet in diameter, with performances from local artists and musicians. But the true star of this festival are the lanterns, with lights which dance in time to the music; no small feat of logistical legerdemain for the lantern makers that operate them.
CLTV36 has played a big role in bringing the festival to millions of homes in the province, in Central Luzon, as well as the entire country and beyond which has magnified its audiences throughout the years since the partnership started in the year 2007. With the advent of live streaming, the Giant Lantern Festival audience has grown even more over the years into the biggest Christmas spectacle in the Philippines.
For fifteen years, thousands of people have tuned in to CLTV36’s Giant Lantern Festival Special LIVE coverage to witness this annual event in the comfort of their homes. During the pandemic, the importance of CLTV36’s television broadcast and live streaming became even more evident as public gatherings and festivals were canceled or postponed. Together with the City of San Fernando, the Giant Lantern Festival Foundation, Inc., and Robinsons Starmills Pampanga, CLTV36 did not hesitate to take the risk to continue bringing joy and hope to the viewers during the Christmas season.
With CLTV36’s access to 2.7M TV households via free TV, with an additional 1.3M++ household viewers via 39 cable partners, and 3.6M nationwide satellite viewers through Cignal Channel 115, CLTV36 has been instrumental in bringing the Giant Lantern Festival to a massive audience not only in the Philippines, but also the rest of the world. Even more viewers, especially OFWs worldwide, access CLTV36 via Live streaming on the CLTV36 website which enjoys 618,000 users, and various online media platforms with over 1.5M followers, 33.5M engagements and 95.8M total minutes viewed.
“The trust and patronage of the audience give all of us here at CLTV36 strength and inspiration to continue our annual Giant Lantern Festival LIVE coverage,” said Billy San Juan, Vice President and Deputy General Manager of CLTV36. “We will continue to partner with the City of San Fernando and the Giant Lantern Festival Foundation in bringing the biggest, brightest and most colorful Christmas event in the Philippines–a timeless tradition that we can all be proud of not only in Pampanga, but also around the world.”
Stay tuned to CLTV36 for the latest updates on the highly anticipated Giant Lantern Festival 2022 which will be telecast live on December 17, 2022 at 4:30 PM on CLTV36! You can also watch the Giant Lantern Festival via live streaming on our Facebook account, and on our website. Follow us on Facebook, Youtube and Instagram @CLTV36Official, Twitter and Tiktok @cltv36, and visit us on www.cltv36.tv.
