So Long, ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’

TV5’s ‘Face the People’, along with ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’, bid adieu on November 21, 2014. (Photo credit: TV5)

The last remnants of the original ‘Everyday All the Way’ block are gone.

On Friday, November 21, 2014, ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’ aired for the final time on TV5. Three days later, ‘Movie Max 5’ took over the slot vacated by both programs.

And in a related development, both ‘Aksyon sa Tanghali’ and ‘T3: Enforced’ were once again cut to 30 minutes. This was in anticipation of the latter program’s year-end reports that are slated to air during Christmas and New Year’s week.

‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’ returned with a second season on July 7, albeit on the late morning slot rather than the afternoon and early evening slots, respectively. The move to new timeslots paved the way for TV5 to air two PBA games on weekdays beginning in mid-October.

As a result, ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’ served as an appetizer to TV5’s noontime newscast ‘Aksyon sa Tanghali’, which debuted the following week.

The two shows also carried new hosts; ‘Face the People’ mainstays Gelli de Belen and Tintin Bersola-Babao were joined by Edu Manzano, while Ogie Alcasid replaced Aga Muhlach on ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’.

In all, 100 episodes were aired on both ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’ during their second seasons, which was not a bad run.

‘Face the People’ marked the swan song of Edu Manzano on the Kapatid network. On September 14, it was announced that Manzano will rejoin ABS-CBN following the completion of his obligations with TV5.

Meanwhile, Gelli de Belen and Ogie Alcasid will have new projects come next year, as TV5 recently announced its upcoming slate of programs for 2015. As for Tintin Bersola-Babao, it is unclear if she will stick with TV5 or move to another network.

With the cancellation of both ‘Face the People’ and ‘Let’s Ask Pilipinas’, TV5 now has an opening for any of their upcoming programs. For now, though, the same ol’ boring Tagalized movies on ‘Movie Max 5’ will take over the slot, albeit temporarily.

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TV5’s ‘Weekend Do It Better’ Revisited

‘Wow Mali’, now under the ‘Lakas ng Tama’ tagline, is one of three ‘Weekend Do It Better’ programs on TV5 that are still on the air today. (Title card courtesy of TV5)

It’s been over a year since TV5 decided to change the network’s programming approach.

Under the leadership of president Noel Lorenzana, the Kapatid network overhauled its programming lineup in a way that it would favor a younger and a more active audience. These initiatives resulted in the ‘Weekend Do It Better’, ‘Everyday All the Way’ and ‘KBO: Karunungan, Balita at Opinyon’ blocks.

The first of these blocks debuted in September of last year. The first block, ‘Weekend Do It Better’, initially consisted of the following programs:

1. ‘Showbiz Police’
2. ‘Tropa Mo Ko Unli’
3. ‘Killer Karaoke: Pinoy Naman’
4. ‘What’s Up Doods?’
5. ‘Pinoy Explorer’
6. ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’
7. ‘Wow Mali Pa Rin’
8. ‘The Mega and the Songwriter’

Of the eight, only ‘Tropa Mo Ko Unli’ (now ‘Tropa Mo Ko Nice Di Ba’), ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ and ‘Wow Mali Pa Rin’ (now ‘Wow Mali Lakas ng Tama’) remain on the air. The three shows were the only ‘Weekend Do It Better’ stalwarts to survive TV5’s most recent transformation, that of the ‘Happy Ka Dito’ era, and their success and viewer loyalty were a testament to that.

On the other hand, ‘What’s Up Doods?’ and ‘The Mega and the Songwriter’ were cancelled just before the end of last year due to low viewership numbers. Then in the first half of this year, ‘Showbiz Police’, ‘Pinoy Explorer’ and ‘Killer Karaoke: Pinoy Naman’ were also cancelled, with the first two having moved to new timeslots in the middle of their run.

The ‘Weekend Do It Better’ title would be deemphasized by February 2014, but in the minds of the Kapatid network, it was only the beginning of further experimentation and constant rebuilding. New programs would be unveiled within the next few months, with the hope of making TV5’s weekend lineup even more formidable.

Today, the experiment continues, but for TV5, ‘Weekend Do It Better’ marked the start of bigger and brighter things for the still-No. 3 network, one that would carry them for the next few years.