One of America’s surprise viral hits is coming to the Philippines.
‘Lip-Sync Battle’, the popular American reality TV program, will have a Filipino franchise that will air on GMA starting this Saturday. Titled ‘Lip-Sync Battle Philippines’, the show will be hosted by Michael V and Iya Villania, and will pit GMA’s top celebrities against each other in hopes of impressing the audience with their lip-synching skills.
The upcoming show will mark the first time since ‘Don’t Lose the Money’ that GMA has a franchised program on their lineup. It will also be Iya’s first full-time program on Channel 7 since ‘Sunday All-Stars’ (not including her role as Chika Minute reporter on ’24 Oras’).
‘Lip-Sync Battle Philippines’ will have two rounds of competition: Strip Down and Full-Blown Concert. Celebrities can lip-sync any song of their choosing, and after two rounds, the crowd will determine the winner, who will receive a championship belt.
While GMA is usually reluctant to acquire foreign media franchises, they decided to take a risk on ‘Lip-Sync Battle’. Realizing how much of a hit the American version was, they now hope that the show’s success in America will carry over to the Philippines.
However, in the weeks leading up to its premiere, the timeslot of ‘Lip-Sync Battle Philippines’ became a big issue for the network. Initially, the show was slated to air after ‘Magpakailanman’, but in the end, GMA decided to place ‘Lip-Sync Battle Philippines’ after ‘Pepito Manaloto: Ang Tunay na Kwento’.
One possible reason for the last-minute change is that GMA wanted to see how can ‘Lip-Sync Battle Philippines’ match up with ‘Pilipinas Got Talent’. The latter show had been a high-rating show on ABS-CBN, and if the former can overcome PGT, it should boost GMA’s morale.
The problem with this change, however, is that Michael V is also a regular cast member on ‘Pepito Manaloto’, and giving him back-to-back shows is a bad case of overexposure. Just ask Billy Crawford, who had to give up hosting duties on ‘Celebrity Playtime’ (during its short-lived late-evening stint) in favor of the recently-concluded ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar’.
That said, GMA needs to figure out a way to fit ‘Lip-Sync Battle Philippines’ into their scheme of things. The concept may be engaging, but unless it has a good timeslot to thrive on, things may turn ugly quick.
‘Lip-Sync Battle Philippines’ premieres this Saturday on GMA.
From the Tube 
Oh, the ethical dilemma of “jumping over the fence” for the sake of direct competition.
Anyway, LSBPH would be a good try after a bit more than a year of lackluster of game show franchise. Let’s all wait and see na lang.
But first, they need to figure out a way to not overexpose Bitoy. Pepito and LSBPH back-to-back is not good for GMA at all. ABS knew all too well about overexposure when Billy Crawford decided to leave Celebrity Playtime out of respect for his other show YFSF.
That’s what the premise of “jumping over the fence” is all about.
Exactly. Poor GMA, they don’t seem to learn from consequence.
AlDub is already overexposed. Tapos, Bitoy will have two shows back-to-back. No wonder why GMA isn’t learning at all. ABS had two issues with Billy Crawford and Vice Ganda’s overexposures, but it was quickly resolved (Celebrity Playtime is now hosted by Luis Manzano and PGT moved to an earlier timeslot once I Love OPM of Anne Curtis premiered), if GMA did anything to avoid Bitoy’s overexposure (by letting LSBPH compete against I Love OPM), I will be convinced.
Or pwede namang ibalik sa Sunday ang Pepito and move Ismol Family or Vampire ang Daddy Ko to Saturday, if GMA badly wanted LSBPH to face PGT. May dalawa namang pagpipilian ang GMA about this timeslot issue, so it’s up to them to solve this problem.
Ratings-wise, LSB PH scored 22% based on data from Kantar Media, not enough to beat MMK with 30.8%.
They also lost to PGT, their intended rival, by 14%. Perhaps GMA’s decision to have Bitoy appear in consecutive shows doesn’t pay off after all.
After four months, LSP will move from its usual timeslot after Pepito Manaloto to 9:30pm every Saturdays. Magpakailanman moves to LSP’s old timeslot. The changes will start tomorrow. Looks like it took GMA four months to resolve Michael V.’s overexposure problems, as well as avoiding a possible humiliation from The Voice Kids 3. Any thoughts on this?
To summarize, GMA learned its lesson the hard way. But let’s discuss that further in an upcoming article.
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