The ratings game and the intense media rivalry!

A few weeks ago, we rebuked Pulse Asia Inc. for coming up with that perception survey that supposedly revealed that 45 percent of Filipinos found President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) as the most corrupt president. But not quite surprisingly, everyone later found out that this survey was apparently commissioned or paid for by former Sen. Sergio Osmeña III, the campaign manager of the opposition in the 2007 elections.

As we wrote back then, this information put a cloud of doubt on research companies like Pulse Asia Inc., where the Filipino people are just starting to realize that political surveys are apparently for sale to the highest bidder and you don’t have to second-guess how those survey results can be “tilted” to favor someone’s candidate. These research companies can give us all the scientific mambo jambo about how they do those surveys, but at the end of the day, when a survey is done to embarrass their political opponent like what happened with that Pulse Asia survey, it loses all its credibility.

Then just a day after that report, ABS-CBN filed a P63-million civil case against the media research agency AGB Nielsen over its “alleged systematic, organized and well-funded attempt” to rig television ratings. Hellooow, wasn’t this an age-old practice or tactic done by the radio stations of yore where they would send “scouts” to check your house or sari-sari store and verify whether you were tuned in to a particular station? If you were “caught” listening to your favorite radio station, then you would get a prize. I knew this then because the old dyRC was just beside our office. If this was an old practice, then it’s quite surprising why ABS-CBN filed a suit on this issue?

Perhaps the whole trouble with the ratings game is that this fight has become so intense that it is no longer funny and worse, it has also spread to the print media. Last week, the Philippine Daily Inquirer came out with double barrels questioning the “visualized data” from the Nielsen Media Research Advertising Information that showed that The Philippine STAR cornered 46 percent of print advertising billings for the month of October as compared to the Inquirer or the Manila Bulletin which the Adboard then upheld as “acceptable and factual.”  But the Adboard later ruled that the visualization of the other two major dailies was “deemed violative.”

Well, The Philippine Star insists that it didn’t make any false claims at all… and in fact on the day that the Inquirer made a big splash against The STAR, it had 52 more pages than the other paper! As the old saying goes, “Proof of the pudding is in the eating.” So eat your hearts out guys; the reality is that The Star is the leader in display advertisements in this country.

The whole problem with this issue lies upon the insecurities of the other newspaper or the television network. Everyone tries to out-advertise each other as the number one… thus confusing the public as to what the real truth is. So the solution is to call upon independent research companies to cleanse themselves as we have all become armchair witnesses to the manipulation done by these research companies that sacrifice their credibility in the altar of profitability. How deeply corrupted has the Filipino soul become? 

Even in Cebu, the ratings game by the networks can be seen through a new series of brand naming like the Kapamilya for ABS-CBN and Kapuso for GMA-7 to win the eyes and ears of the Filipino televiewer. Today, families often identify themselves as a Kapuso or a Kapamilya. While some good can be derived from this siding with one’s favorite TV station, but often it leads to quarrels among friends and family members.

The fierce competition between the two networks has gone to a certain extreme in their producing what we call “media superstars” which in my book is totally uncalled for because we in the media are supposed to be the medium. It is the news that should be magnified, not the TV newscaster! I have been to the US many times and I have never seen a poster of Larry King, Wolf Blitzer or Christiane Amanpour being displayed in the cities I have visited.

But in Cebu we had those huge posters of the media superstars of both ABS-CBN and GMA-7, which thankfully were blown into smithereens by the unexpected sudden typhoon “Lando” over a month ago. Thank God for that!

The intense rivalry in the print media industry has spread outside Manila where Cebuanos were also given ringside seats in the battle between The Philippine Star, which has now partnered with The Freeman, and the Inquirer, which operates the Cebu Daily News. As to who is number one, let me just say that The Freeman where I write columns six times a week makes no such claims, while the others do, which is an obvious sign of insecurity! 

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.