Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover. —Homer Simpson
I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts. —Orson Welles
Television: chewing gum for the eyes. —Frank Lloyd Wright
Philippine TV is big business; it’s also now at the heart and soul of Philippine showbiz. Despite the boundless corruption of our many politicians being the No. 1 burden on our economy, one indicator of our still robust and growing Philippine economy is the success of our TV stations. Not only are the two archrivals, GMA-7, led by Atty. Felipe “Henry” Gozon, and ABS-CBN 2, led by Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III, earning huge profits, Philippine telecom king Manuel “Manny” V. Pangilinan of PLDT/Smart recently signed a deal to take over a 75-percent stake in ABC TV 5, the network ranked a distant No. 3 and once controlled by Tony Boy Cojuangco and the Malaysian-owned Primedia.
Who among the three business leaders will emerge as the King of Philippine TV?
At the recent star-studded Oct. 22 launch of S magazine’s special edition, of which this writer is editor-in-chief, GMA-7 chairman and president Gozon told me: “My opinion about PLDT’s entry into ABC 5 is it’s part of their convergence strategy for their telecommunications business; they want to strengthen entertainment content for their mobile phone business.”
Under its head, Gary Dujali, PLDT myDSL also recently launched its WatchPad as the Philippines’ first-ever broadband entertainment portal offering free movies and TV news, which can be accessed on laptops or computers. Indeed, the PLDT acquisition of the money-losing ABC 5 (this fact was admitted by its Malaysian investors in the Malaysian media) makes sense.
I hope the three big bosses of TV can someday sit together and agree not to use the raging ratings war as a reason for allowing some executives to dumb down their daily fare (and the public’s intelligence, along with it) with inane shows or gory, tabloid-ish news accounts, for TV is a powerful medium to educate as well as culturally and morally uplift people (or to do the reverse).
I lament the death of English primetime newscasts on Philippine TV due to the cutthroat ratings war, because I believe English is no longer a foreign language but an important part of Philippine culture, in the same way that English is part of Singaporean and American culture, not just of England.
Not only is TV big business, network heads have also already surpassed movie producers of yesteryear as the most powerful arbiters of showbiz stardom, turning many wannabe starlets and stud-lets into instant celebrities by giving them roles in primetime TV shows.
The TV networks are also dabbling in the movie business, with GMA Films of GMA-7 and Star Cinema of ABS-CBN 2. Star Cinema started out with the help of ABS-CBN 2’s former joint venture partner, Regal Films founder Lily Yu Monteverde, whose former basketball player husband, Remy Monteverde, is a son of the late copra trader Lee Long Seng.
As early as 2001, PLDT, led by MVP, was reportedly planning to buy control of GMA-7 from the three biggest stockholders Gozon, his art collector brother-in-law Menardo “Nards” Jimenez and Gilberto Duavit. The eldest son of Nards Jimenez, Menardo “Butch” Gozon Jimenez Jr., is now a top executive of PLDT.
An ethnic Chinese tycoon told this writer: “Menardo Jimenez is like the Mao Zedong of GMA-7. He built the foundations of that TV-radio network, while his brother-in-law Atty. Felipe Gozon is like Deng Xiaoping, who made GMA-7 into the most profitable broadcast media business in the Philippines.
“Mao founded and unified China in 1949, cleansed it of feudalism and colonial exploitation by the West and Japan, while Deng Xiaoping used market-oriented reforms in the 1980s to make China into the richest, fastest-growing economic power on earth.”
The intensifying battle of the TV networks will be most interesting and is good news for the Philippine economy, for corporate advertisers and ultimately for us, the viewing public, because dynamic free market competition increases service quality, can lower prices and will hopefully generate more excellence in TV shows.
When will the national government privatize the moribund, state-run TV stations Channel 13 and Channel 9? When will it revitalize Channel 4 to become as good as Britain’s BBHC or China’s CCTV?
The TV war is going to be fascinating in another sense. The three protagonists are graduates of top Ivy League schools: MVP is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, while Atty. Gozon is a graduate of Yale University and Lopez is an alumnus of Harvard University. Atty. Gozon told me his daughter, Anette Gozon Abrogar of GMA Films, is not only a Harvard graduate, but also a valedictorian of UP Law School.
GMA Network, Inc. is No. 1 in profitability. For the first six months of this year, it had gross revenues of P6.335 billion, up eight percent compared to last year. Net income for the same period was P1.361 billion — up an impressive 20 percent — while total assets stood at P12.315 billion or an increase of seven percent.
Gozon said he expects GMA-7’s second-half net income to be 20 percent higher than the same period last year, due to expected higher ad spending from political ads for the 2010 elections as well as the reduction in the corporate income tax rate. Many exciting new plans will further boost GMA-7’s revenues and incomes, such as the ongoing buildup of homegrown talents by the GMA Artist Center, led by talented GMA-7 vice president Ida Ramos Henares and Atty. Gozon’s innovative plan to launch a 24-hour news channel.
Despite ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp.’s trying to win over its archrival in terms of TV ratings this year, it remains No. 2 in terms of profitability. ABS-CBN reported net income for the first half of 2009 at P813 million, which represents an eight-percent increase from 2008. The company’s consolidated revenues rose seven percent to P11.7 billion as of the end of June, with airtime revenues from all platforms up six percent to P6.72 billion. Direct sales, including SkyCable’s revenue contribution, rose 28 percent to P4.97 billion.
Since Manny V. Pangilinan is a workaholic business whiz who has vigorously reformed and built up PLDT into one of the most profitable telecom firms in Southeast Asia, what are his innovative strategies and plans to transform ABC 5 into a profitable broadcast media success?
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