Carmela Replay Will Fail Against The Singing Bee

Looks like GMA is poised to lose another ratings war on Saturday afternoons, an alarmingly frequent occurrence for the once-mighty network.

GMA will re-air the pilot week of the Marian Rivera comeback series ‘Carmela’ tomorrow on the slot normally occupied by ‘GMA Blockbusters’. Unfortunately, the re-run will be up against the ABS-CBN game show ‘The Singing Bee’, which has toppled erstwhile occupant ‘Startalk’ and forced the show’s return to the Sunday slot.

If the first week returns are of any indication, it is clear that viewers still prefer the love team of Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla in ‘Got to Believe’ over the comeback of Marian Rivera. Re-airing ‘Carmela’ was meant to be GMA’s last resort at convincing viewers that Marian still has it. However, Marian’s best days were well behind her, and despite all the recent accolades that she earned over the past year, her career as a GMA contract artist will only be a mere afterthought, unless the Kapuso braintrust revamps their creative unit and search for new ownership.

The re-air of ‘Carmela’ will definitely be a dud for GMA, no question. Unless they decided to put a game show (preferably ‘Celebrity Bluff’) to go up against ‘The Singing Bee’ rather than air old movies on that timeslot, it will be another devastating defeat for the Kapuso network.

The Inconsistency of MTRCB’s SPG Rating

The ‘Strong Parental Guidance’ rating was implemented by the MTRCB on February 9, 2012. However, its usage remains inconsistent.

In the last few episodes, GMA gag show ‘Bubble Gang’ carried the blue PG (Parental Guidance) rating instead of the red SPG rating. Despite the downgrade of its rating, the show continued to feature some instances of serious themes and profanity that are deemed too inappropriate for younger audiences. With that in mind, why is the SPG rating remains underutilized by the MTRCB?

The ‘Strong Parental Guidance’ (‘Striktong Patnubay at Gabay’ in Filipino) rating was first used on February 9, 2012. SPG is implemented to programs which contain the following: strong themes, profane languages, violence, sex, horror and drugs, and as a result, they are forced to air the 30-second SPG advisory twice unlike those rated G (General Patronage) or PG. Initially used on a per-episode basis, SPG’s usage became widely known in programs such as ‘Temptation of Wife’ and ‘My Husband’s Lover’, where its tackling of extremely serious issues led to its full implementation of SPG.

However, its usage remains spotty at best. For example, fellow gag shows ‘Banana Split’ and ‘Tropa Mo Ko Unli’ are currently rated SPG by the MTRCB, while ‘Bubble Gang’ has seen its rating downgraded to PG despite the fact that it continues to tackle serious themes. SPG is also utilized in some episodes of both ‘Magpakailanman’ and ‘Maalaala Mo Kaya’, both of which are predominantly PG-rated. And the now-defunct talk show ‘What’s Up Doods?’ initially carried an SPG rating before it was later downgraded to PG when it started to air reruns.

SPG remains the most underutilized classification rating in Philippine television because of two factors:

1. Only a few programs are willing to push the envelope towards more sensitive topics that may be unsuitable for children

2. Teleseryes have a tendency to feature episodes with more violent scenes, followed by more light-hearted events, and vice versa

If the MTRCB can start using the SPG rating on a per-program basis, then it will benefit both producers and viewers alike in creating new ideas for various programs. The SPG rating is created in order to give producers much-needed input towards creating series with more serious issues, in the process informing the family about the consequences of airing such scenes. Without it, then how will such scenes affect the future of younger individuals?