GMA Finally Responds to Ipaglaban Mo

A huge test awaits ‘Ipaglaban Mo’ tomorrow afternoon.

Enter ‘Karelasyon’, the upcoming GMA drama anthology hosted by Carla Abellana. The program will showcase a different side of love and relationships, with stories focusing on various ordeals that may affect one’s love for the other.

Throughout the show, various issues such as jealousy, infidelity, individual obsessions and vices, and family and work-related issues will be presented and discussed. As such, sweet and light-hearted moments will be deemphasized in ‘Karelasyon’, but rather, more hostile and confrontational scenes will be the norm.

With the impending debut of ‘Karelasyon’, it seems that GMA has found a more appropriate program to challenge ‘Ipaglaban Mo’. Since premiering on June 7, 2014, ‘Ipaglaban Mo’ has given opposing GMA programs fits, beating ‘Startalk’, ‘Wish Ko Lang’ and ‘Asian Horror Stories’ in the ratings.

The consistently high ratings of ‘Ipaglaban Mo’ posed some problems for ‘Startalk’, whose return to Saturday afternoons last year was met with little to no fanfare. Not even a change of timeslot with the newly-reformatted ‘Wish Ko Lang’ and a reduction in airtime helped matters.

‘Ipaglaban Mo’ also fared better than ‘Asian Horror Stories’ (and its alternate name ‘Tales of Horror’). As a result, GMA decided to do something drastic in hopes of arresting this skid.

Thus, ‘Karelasyon’ was conceived, in order to answer ‘Ipaglaban Mo’. The latter program may not be similar to ‘Ipaglaban Mo’ in terms of scope, but is nevertheless helpful in solving issues that are presented in each episode.

Now GMA must hope that ‘Karelasyon’ will deliver a more respectable performance than ‘Ipaglaban Mo”s previous opponents. The pilot episode of the show should be a measuring stick as to how ‘Karelasyon’ will perform in the long term. Good luck.

‘Karelasyon’ premieres tomorrow after ‘Eat Bulaga’ on GMA.

A Halloween Special: GMA’s Dark, Cruel, and Twisted Weekends

Call it one scary Halloween this year for the folks at GMA.

For much of 2014, GMA has been airing not one, but two horror series every weekend. Anyone who became a fan of both ‘Tales of Horror’ and ‘True/Asian Horror Stories’ must have their hairs raised from all that fear.

Both series have one thing in common: they air nothing but Far Eastern (particularly Korean and Japanese) horror flicks. In addition, both ‘Tales of Horror’ and ‘True/Asian Horror Stories’ occupy the mid-afternoon slots.

These two series were symbolic of how bad GMA’s programming has been through the past several years. Both ‘Tales of Horror’ and ‘True/Asian Horror Stories’ were considered inferior efforts on the part of GMA to stay relevant on weekends, and had no answers to rival ABS-CBN’s programs.

There was a time when GMA used to rule the weekends. Those who grew up in the ‘glory days’ of the network must have heard of shows like ‘Kakabakaba’ and ‘Wag Kukurap’, two locally-produced shows that once helped GMA win the ratings war against its ABS-CBN counterparts like ‘Oka Tokat’ and ‘Nginiig’.

That was then. Now, it looks like the ghosts of programs’ past are beginning to haunt them.

Case in point: the movie-infested daytime slot (e.g. ‘GMA Blockbusters’) on Sundays. Why? Because they are too repetitive and are overly dubbed in the Filipino language, in the process scaring away viewers at every turn.

For GMA executives, the fear of being upstaged by an archrival is real. Whereas before they had the ability to counter and outdo what ABS-CBN is doing, now it seems like they are hiding away from it.

As Halloween approaches, the mood inside the Timog headquarters appear dark and frightening. And for those who know all too well about GMA’s programming every weekends, there is always a reason to feel scared.

Announcement: From the Tube will take a break from October 31 to November 3, in observance of Halloween and All Saints’ Day. The U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 songs for November 8 will posted on November 4.