As ABS-CBN’s ‘Pinoy Big Brother’ continues to look for future artists among its housemates, GMA teased its audience by updating the Facebook page of ‘StarStruck’, implying that a new season will come around very soon.
‘StarStruck”s most recent season came in 2015 when it crowned Klea Pineda and Migo Adecer as the Ultimate Female and Male Survivor respectively. However, that season of ‘StarStruck’ was a disaster as it endured poor ratings while airing in the early primetime slot.
It remains to be seen if GMA will indeed produce another season of ‘StarStruck’. Considering how bad last season turned out, it will not be a surprise if viewers have seen the last of the country’s original ‘artista search’ program.
For ‘The Kids’ Choice’, it is true that they are winning in the ratings. But in hindsight, it is more of a moral defeat than an actual victory because the numbers tell more of a losing battle.
While Kantar figures suggest that last Sunday’s finale of ‘The Kids’ Choice’ was a success, in reality it is not. Its 26.8% rating was a major drop-off from the second season finale of ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids’ which hit 45.6%.
"The Kids' Choice" grand finals topped weekend programming as it recorded 24.8% last Saturday (Nov 3) and 26.8% last Sunday (Nov 4). #KantarMediapic.twitter.com/mkN1XMS3Rr
In terms of overall performance from start to finish, ‘The Kids’ Choice’ failed to deliver as well. None of its episodes cracked the 30% barrier, with its highest-rated episode being the first which received 29%.
Again, this was a huge step back from ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids’ which routinely hit the 30% mark or higher in its run. To make matters worse, GMA took advantage of ‘The Kids’ Choice”s ineptitude, as ‘The Clash’ came to within 1% of the latter in its finale last month.
With such a pitiful performance in spite of the show’s good ratings, it is no secret why ABS-CBN pulled the plug on ‘The Kids’ Choice’ after only 20 episodes. The concept may be original, but in the eyes of the viewers, the Just Kids League is simply too raw and too young to process some serious critical thinking.
Not even the shift from ordinary kids to celebrities last month made the difference. Overall, ‘The Kids’ Choice’ had potential written all over, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
To ABS-CBN’s credit, however, they at least gave it a try. A round of applause should dim all the pain.
Still, much like the ill-fated GMA talent show ‘Anak Ko Yan’ a few years ago, only a few will reminisce about ‘The Kids’ Choice’. This is one forgettable show that ABS-CBN would like to get rid of, and for good reason: it simply did not resonate with the masses.
What if the kids are the judges of a reality talent show?
In a role reversal of sorts, ABS-CBN will give its young child stars an opportunity to play the part of judges on ‘The Kids’ Choice’. The five kid judges (dubbed the Just Kids League) are as follows:
Jayden Villegas
Carlo Mendoza
Onyok Pineda
Xia Vigor
Chunsa Jung
Every week, the Just Kids League will discuss and evaluate the performance of four “Fambatos” or non-celebrity families brimming with talent. Being the youngest of the bunch, expect these kids to be more spontaneous with their comments.
In a deviation from the norm, ‘The Kids’ Choice’ will be an original concept created by ABS-CBN. In addition, the show will feature ordinary families instead of merely celebrity contestants.
Anyone who has criticized ABS-CBN’s tendency to use celebrities and foreign talent show franchises on a regular basis would be baffled to see them produce a more unique show like ‘The Kids’ Choice’. That said, with this creation, ABS-CBN should prove doubters wrong and if this show rates well, their hard work will be justified.
‘The Kids’ Choice’ will be hosted by Robi Domingo with Erik Nicolas as his sidekick. It will air every Saturday after ‘Home Sweetie Home’ and every Sunday after ‘Wansapanatym’ on ABS-CBN.
With the 2018 remake of ‘Meteor Garden’ set to air right before ‘TV Patrol’ starting this Monday (more on that later this week), ABS-CBN decided to fill the void with a transitional show on the timeslot normally occupied by its Asianovelas. And this is no ordinary show.
Back in April, ABS-CBN announced a worldwide audition tour called ‘Star Hunt: The Kapamilya Grand Auditions’. The tour began in Manila on the weekend of April 20, after which the network hosted further auditions in both the Philippines and abroad.
Their purpose is to find aspirants that will become part of various ABS-CBN talent and reality shows. Examples include ‘The Voice of the Philippines’, ‘I Can See Your Voice’, ‘Pilipinas Got Talent’, ‘Pinoy Big Brother’, ‘Tawag ng Tanghalan’, ‘Dance Kids’, ‘Little Big Shots’, ‘Maalaala Mo Kaya’ and the soon-to-be-launched ‘World of Dance Philippines’.
Beginning Monday, ABS-CBN will air highlights from these auditions as part of ‘Star Hunt: The Grand Audition Show’. Hosted by former ‘Pinoy Big Brother’ alums Kim Chiu, Robi Domingo, Alex Gonzaga and Melai Cantiveros, the program will take a look at some of the aspirants and their backstories.
This is perhaps a mere short-term solution for ABS-CBN. After all, there are high hopes surrounding the remake of ‘Meteor Garden’ that airing the Asianovela on its normal afternoon timeslot may hinder its viewership due to the ‘TV Patrol’ regional newscasts in the provinces.
Not wanting to risk a loss of viewers, ABS-CBN decided to place ‘Meteor Garden’ on the leadoff slot of Primetime Bida. This leads to ‘Star Hunt: The Grand Audition Show’ taking over the regular Asianovela timeslot of Kapamilya Gold.
Honestly, it makes perfect sense for ABS-CBN to produce a filler show on a timeslot where not all areas will receive it. With regional versions of ‘TV Patrol’ being plugged into this timeslot, ABS-CBN realized that a filler show like ‘Star Hunt’ will be much better than, let’s say a teleserye, because ratings are of no concern to the program and it only serves as a stopgap.
With that, good luck to ABS-CBN for this temporary endeavor. Regardless of how it performed, the most important part is that it served its purpose.
Four episodes in and ‘The Clash’ does not look too enticing to say the least. The GMA singing competition show is off to a poor start, both critically and commercially.
During the weekend of July 7, ‘The Clash”s ratings were at 19.4 and 19.6% on Saturday and Sunday respectively. On the other hand, ABS-CBN’s ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids’ season 2 ended with 32.2 and 34.1%.
But it is not just the underwhelming ratings that hurt ‘The Clash’. From the moment it aired viewers complained about the bad lighting, shaky camera angles, awful sound quality and fake audience reactions.
Much of the blame was pointed to director Louie Ignacio. Despite the fact that he is one of the most in-demand directors in television, people can’t help but think why this man had to be at the helm of ‘The Clash’ when in fact he had been the culprit for the downfall of ‘Party Pilipinas’ several years ago.
And while GMA claimed that ‘The Clash”s pilot episode topped Twitter’s trending topics, the overwhelmingly negative reception to the program muted this achievement. But things only got worse for ‘The Clash’.
GMA's newest talent competition 'The Clash' took the first spot on Twitter yesterday, July 7. https://t.co/U94oDvaaVS
The second weekend of ‘The Clash’ last July 14-15 saw the program dip to 17.3% and 17.6% in the ratings. Meanwhile, ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids’ remained consistent, posting figures of 33.4 and 32.4%.
There were still some negative reactions from netizens but the impact was less considerable from the first weekend. As a result, ‘The Clash’ became a non-factor on Twitter whereas ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids’ got a boost thanks to Marco Masa’s winning portrayal of Enrique Gil.
The good news for ‘The Clash’ is that the competition still has a long way to go. Judging them as a flop after only four episodes may be a tad premature.
But how much longer can the viewers tolerate a mess of a talent show? Unless certain improvements are to be made in terms of presentation, public sentiment against ‘The Clash’ will only grow from hereon.
Desperation has become a theme for GMA in recent years.
Weekend primetime, in particular, is more of a mess for the Kapuso network than a blessing. After all, ABS-CBN’s high-rating franchised talent shows like ‘The Voice’, ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar’ and ‘Pinoy Boyband Superstar’ has left GMA in a wretched state, always one step behind from the other.
And even when GMA tried to produce a talent show, they tend to make some unwise decisions and avoid any sort of competition against ABS-CBN’s own. Remember when they aired ‘Bet ng Bayan’ and ‘To the Top’ on the not-so convenient late-night slots?
Fast forward to now and it looks like GMA has learned its lesson and is finally poised to give ABS-CBN a dose of its own medicine. Starting this weekend the network will introduce ‘The Clash’, an all-new singing competition to be hosted by Regine Velasquez-Alcasid.
A total of 62 aspirants selected from several nationwide auditions will compete in intense one-on-one battles to determine the country’s next singing sensation. Judges Lani Misalucha, Ai-ai delas Alas and Christian Bautista will evaluate the performance of each individual and reveal the verdict in front of the audience.
Also part of ‘The Clash’ are Joyce Pring and Andre Paras. The two will provide some news on the preparations of each aspirant and give updates on their performance.
Having learned from the poor reception that ‘Bet ng Bayan’ and ‘To the Top’ earned, GMA made a smart move with ‘The Clash’. The show would air not only on Saturdays but on Sundays as well, and in a more convenient timeslot.
But that does not mean they will have a fighting chance against ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids’. With the latter show currently earning ratings in the 30s, ‘The Clash’ should have its hands full dealing with this tough opponent.
Still, Kapuso viewers will be more than happy to see GMA produce a singing competition show once more. This is an opportunity that GMA is itching to do, and out of desperation, they delivered.
Now it is up to ‘The Clash’ to make an impact. But will it be more than enough to make the competition more meaningful?
‘The Clash’ airs every Saturday after ‘Pepito Manaloto’ and Sunday after ‘Daig Kayo ng Lola Ko’ on GMA.
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