Explaining the Disappearance of GMA’s Teleserye Episode Teasers

Notice something different on GMA these past few weeks?

Anyone who tuned in to Channel 7 should take a look at the commercial breaks during every program. There are the usual episode teasers, programming trailers and advisories, product advertisements, and for election season, political advertisements for national candidates.

But there is one aspect that is missing from these commercial breaks of late, and that is the episode teasers for all GMA teleseryes. So what happened to them?

As April got underway, GMA elected to stop airing episode teasers for their teleseryes, and instead create repetitive 10-second advisories for each program. Even in the network’s official YouTube page, the said episode teasers were nowhere to be found of late; their most recent upload was that of ‘Poor Señorita’ (see above), and that was two weeks ago.

The motive of GMA, it seems, is to save money, particularly since the upcoming national elections will require a heftier budget for GMA News coverage and teleseryes take a majority of the network’s overall production cost. While GMA appeared to have increased their income by 111%, as far as they were concerned, it was still not enough.

Remember, an episode teaser’s purpose is to preview the upcoming episode that will air on that day. But since GMA decided to remove this approach for their teleseryes, this left viewers without any information on what will happen to the upcoming episode of a particular series.

That said, with the lack of any promotional effort for their teleseryes, GMA’s continued decline is once again becoming evident. And it didn’t help that they are also a non-factor in the ratings and on social media.

It will be interesting to see how this latest conservative effort will pay off for GMA. With elections drawing near, GMA needs to step up their game, otherwise they might fall even further behind ABS-CBN and TV5 as far as technological resources go.

And yes, there’s still the new ‘Encantadia’ to worry about, so this is definitely now or never for GMA. Good luck.

The Unexpected and Quiet Cancellation of Sabado-Badoo

‘Sabado-Badoo’ last aired on July 25, with GMA quietly pulling out the show from its lineup. (Photo credit: GMA Network)

It was a cancellation that no one saw coming.

The GMA comedy program ‘Sabado-Badoo’ was last seen on July 25. The show, hosted by Sef Cadayona and Betong Sumaya, featured a wide variety of videos that were variously presented in a humorous manner; most of which contained scenes from classic GMA shows.

When it premiered last March 14, ‘Sabado-Badoo’ was supposed to be GMA’s answer to ABS-CBN’s ‘Mga Kwento ni Marc Logan’. But it failed to even make a dent in the national ratings, as viewers find Marc Logan’s presentation style to be even funnier and quirkier than Sef and Betong’s.

‘Sabado-Badoo”s most recent episode came on July 25. After that, however, no further episodes were aired, and instead, ‘Pepito Manaloto: Ang Tunay na Kwento’ was moved to an earlier timeslot.

GMA did not officially announce the cancellation; instead they quietly pulled out ‘Sabado-Badoo’ from its Sabado Star Power lineup. Meanwhile, Sef was given a lead role in ‘Juan Tamad’, which began airing on August 23 (this should also explain why Sef left ‘Vampire ang Daddy Ko’ in order to concentrate on this project).

‘Sabado-Badoo’ could have been a good show had GMA chose a more experienced presenter. Too bad they don’t have a match for humor-oriented journalist Marc Logan, who is a regular on TV Patrol’s closing segments and a host on DZMM’s ‘Sakto’ with Amy Perez.

It was an unfortunate ending to a promising show. Let’s just hope that GMA learns from this latest ordeal.

Koreanovela Overload Continues on GMA

Add a sixth Koreanovela to GMA’s weekday lineup.

In what seems like a new record in Philippine television history, GMA will air six Koreanovelas every weekday beginning this Tuesday, August 4. The latest addition is ‘Reply 1997’, a Koreanovela that reminisces on the good times of teenage life.

The story focuses on six high school buddies who reunite for a dinner after 15 years apart, two of whom would announce their marriage. Throughout the story, flashbacks of their teenage lives will resurface throughout the conversation, switching back and forth between their 18-year-old selves in 1997, and their present selves 15 years later.

‘Reply 1997’ stars Jung Eun-ji, Seo In-guk, Hoya, Shin So-yul, Eun Ji-won, and Lee Si-eon. The series was one of the most popular dramas in Korean television.

The entry of ‘Reply 1997’ continues a downward trend for GMA in terms of programming quality and creativity. As mentioned earlier, GMA will air six Koreanovelas starting this Tuesday, the list of which are as follows:

1. The Master’s Sun (re-run; airing at 9:40 a.m., replacing Secret Garden)
2. Two Mothers (airing at 10:10 a.m.)
3. The King’s Doctor (airing at 10:50 a.m.)
4. Birth of a Beauty (airing at 5:15 p.m.)
5. Reply 1997 (airing at 5:50 p.m. starting this Tuesday)
6. Pinocchio (airing at 9:55 p.m. on Mondays-Thursdays)

With six Koreanovelas at their disposal, it is clear that GMA’s creative nadir is now at its worst point. The inability to produce formidable local programming and their overreliance on importing other countries’ programs are taking its toll on the creative staff.

Worse, ‘Reply 1997’ will face a tough opponent in ABS-CBN’s ‘Pasion de Amor’. The local adaptation of the original Colombian telenovela has been on a ratings tear, and it left its soon-to-be-departing opponent ‘My Mother’s Secret’ in the dust.

The breaking point is now near for GMA. Six Koreanovelas on a weekday won’t help their cause.

Note: ‘My Mother’s Secret’ was scheduled to end tomorrow, July 31. But due to a preemption that was caused by the State of the Nation Address last Monday, the series is now scheduled to finish on Monday, August 3. ‘Reply 1997”s premiere will be moved to Tuesday, August 4.

In 100 Words: The Flying House is Now a Kapamilya

It’s now the turn of ‘The Flying House’ to jump from Timog to Mother Ignacia.

Much like its sister series ‘Superbook’, ‘The Flying House’ has become very synonymous with GMA since the 1980s. But starting this Saturday, it will now be seen on ABS-CBN, who almost a year ago acquired both the classic and reimagined versions of ‘Superbook’ through distributor CBN Asia.

‘The Flying House’ will be dubbed in Filipino, using virtually the same voice cast as ‘Superbook’. The latter series will replace the original ‘Superbook’ at 9:30 a.m., while the reimagined ‘Superbook’ will continue to air on Sundays at the aforementioned timeslot.

Another terrific addition to ABS-CBN’s weekend morning lineup.

Is ‘Medyo Late Night’ Returning to TV5?

Signs of ‘The Medyo Late Night Show with Jojo A.”s return to TV5 were first revealed on the show’s Facebook account. (Photo credit: The Medyo Late Night Show with Jojo A. Official Facebook)

It’s been awhile since ‘The Medyo Late Night Show with Jojo A.’ went on air.

Jojo Alejar’s late-night show was last seen on GMA in December of last year, before taking its supposed periodical season hiatus. However, GMA decided not to renew its blocktime deal with JojoATV Productions, producers of the said show, without giving any reason behind it.

The departure of ‘Medyo Late Night’ from GMA leaves ‘The Tim Yap Show’ as the only remaining late-night weekday talk show of the network (the latter also airs on a seasonal basis). Meanwhile, the whereabouts of ‘Medyo Late Night”s new home were being revealed early this month.

On the Facebook page of ‘The Medyo Late Night Show with Jojo A.’, clues regarding the show’s possible return to TV5 were given in the cover photo. Hints of a red necktie and the word ‘Kapatid’ suggest that TV5 may once again play host to Jojo Alejar’s talk show.

The possibility of a return to TV5 was also fueled by the fact that Alejar continues to appear on the said network’s shows despite ‘Medyo Late Night”s brief stint with GMA. Alejar currently appears on the sitcom ‘Mac and Chiz’.

If it’s true that ‘Medyo Late Night’ will return to TV5 this year, the development should help the network’s programming a lot. The former Karunungan, Balita at Opinyon (KBO) block has been airing reruns for the past several months, and with irrelevance and repetition creeping over TV5’s late-night slot, it is time for a change of direction.

Replacing the defunct KBO block with ‘Medyo Late Night’ may be the tonic TV5 desperately needed in order to improve its shallow late-night lineup. And it should benefit them.

It remains to be seen if ‘Medyo Late Night’ will indeed rejoin TV5, but for a network so desperate to get rid of something irrelevant, this is the way to do it.

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.