My Super D Premiere Leads to Late-Afternoon Shakeup

It’s going to be an afternoon of change for ABS-CBN next week.

On Monday, April 18, the superhero drama series ‘My Super D’ will officially premiere on the Primetime Bida block. That was the good news.

The bad news, there are no free slots for ‘My Super D’ on the current Primetime Bida lineup. Its intended replacement, ‘FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano’, has not announced a final episode date due to its impressively high ratings, and ABS-CBN has no intention of replacing it at this point.

So where does ‘My Super D’ end up? Luckily, ABS-CBN freed up one slot for the upcoming series when it announced that ‘Game ng Bayan’ will air its final episode tomorrow afternoon.

The sudden cancellation of ‘Game ng Bayan’ came barely a month after it premiered to replace ‘Kapamilya Deal or No Deal’. Clearly, ABS-CBN knew what was coming, as ‘Game ng Bayan’ not only struggled in the ratings, but also became a logistical nightmare for the network.

With ‘Game ng Bayan”s cancellation now official, its old timeslot will now be filled by ‘We Will Survive’, the drama series starring Melai Cantiveros and Pokwang. It will still face GMA’s ‘Wowowin’, but not all areas will receive ‘We Will Survive’, which is a problem for ABS-CBN’s Regional Network Group.

Whether or not ABS-CBN will keep ‘We Will Survive’ on the Primetime Bida slot or move it to Kapamilya Gold remains to be seen. However, they need to find a way to make the broadcasts of ‘We Will Survive’ as simultaneous as possible, so as not to sacrifice its decently good ratings.

Going back to ‘My Super D’, this superhero drama series follows the footsteps of fellow ABS-CBN original creations such as ‘Super Inggo’, ‘My Little Juan’ and ‘Juan Dela Cruz’. With each of these series becoming successful hits for the network, the pressure is now on ‘My Super D’ to deliver similar results.

In ‘My Super D’, Dominic Ochoa will play the titular superhero role as Super D. He will be supported by Marco Masa and Bianca Manalo, who will play the role of son and wife respectively.

Joining them in the series are Atoy Co, Ryan Rems, Myrtle Sarrosa, Jef Gaitan, Louie Domingo, Marina Benipayo, Bong Regala, Jason Francisco, Marvin Agustin, Noni Buencamino and Ronaldo Valdez. It will be directed by Frasco Mortiz and Lino Cayetano.

With these changes now official, the question is, can ‘My Super D’ fly higher than ‘Wowowin’? And can ‘Wowowin’ be able to stave off this new threat?

We’ll find out.

‘My Super D’ premieres this Monday, and airs weeknights before ‘TV Patrol’.

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Kapamilya Blockbusters, FPJ Return to ABS-CBN; Other Notes

Last Monday, ABS-CBN revamped its ‘Kapamilya Gold’ afternoon lineup by reintroducing the movie block ‘Kapamilya Blockbusters’. The said program has been aired in both the morning and afternoon slots primarily to fill in programming slots on a temporary basis. ‘Kapamilya Blockbusters’ replaced the recently concluded ‘Juan de la Cruz‘ spinoff ‘My Little Juan’ in its timeslot, and airs after ‘Showtime’ and before ‘Dugong Buhay’.

The first film aired on the weekday return of ‘Kapamilya Blockbusters’ is ‘The Adventures of Pureza: Queen of the Riles‘, starring Melai Cantiveros. The program will focus more on Star Cinema‘s recent film releases, with occasional foreign films added for good measure. While ‘Kapamilya Blockbusters’ will only be used as a temporary fill-in while an upcoming afternoon teleserye is being planned, it will give viewers an opportunity to watch films they’ve never seen before in cinemas.

Before ‘Kapamilya Blockbusters’ moved back to its weekday slot, it aired during Sunday mornings, with its timeslot only preempted by ‘Pinoy Pride’ boxing matches and NBA games. However, with the expected return of ‘Kapamilya Blockbusters’ to the weekday slot, ABS-CBN announced that ‘FPJ: Da King on ABS-CBN’ will make its return. As the name suggests, it features classic films from Fernando Poe, Jr.‘s library of archives, which the Kapamilya network has exclusive rights. In addition, ‘FPJ: Da King’ will also air on Studio 23, Cinema One and Jeepney TV.

The ‘FPJ: Da King’ block will also be a fill-in program, after which it will again be replaced by NBA games and Pinoy Pride matches on ABS-CBN soon. However, don’t expect the FPJ films to be axed soon, as there will be a possibility of moving the program to another timeslot once the NBA season begins.

On another note, the hit teleserye ‘Muling Buksan ang Puso’, starring Julia Montes and Enrique Gil, will officially conclude in three weeks. The teleserye has enjoyed consistently high viewership numbers despite pitting against equally strong GMA teleseryes ‘Mundo Mo’y Akin’ and ‘My Husband’s Lover’. The series finale is expected to air on October 4. Meanwhile, ABS-CBN started to air teasers for the upcoming teleserye ‘Galema: Anak ni Zuma’, starring Andi Eigenmann, which is expected to replace ‘Muling Buksan ang Puso’ in its timeslot.

HD on Philippine Television

The widescreen HD version of the MTRCB Parental Guidance advisory. Note the letterboxes on the top and bottom of the screenshot.

High-definition television in the Philippines is a virtually novel concept. This new medium in television broadcast gives viewers a wider and clearer resolution that what standard-definition provides. A high-definition broadcast necessitates the use of flat-screen television sets, which are more spacious and less bulkier than a standard television set.

HDTV was given a test run in the United States and Europe in the 1990s, but it was not until the late 2000s when virtually all television broadcasts in the Atlantic started to air in HD. In the Philippines, ABS-CBN subsidiary SkyCable launched its HD service to its customers in 2009. That same year, the mother network began broadcasting UAAP‘s 72nd season in HD, marking the first high-definition television broadcast in the Philippines. In the years that followed, ABS-CBN began to shoot its teleseryes with HD cameras, beginning with 2011’s ‘Budoy‘.

This year, ABS-CBN’s popular kiligserye ‘Be Careful with My Heart‘ is just one of several Kapamilya drama series being shot with HD cameras. In addition, they are also shooting ‘Juan Dela Cruz‘, ‘Muling Buksan ang Puso’, ‘Dugong Buhay’, and ‘My Little Juan’ in HD. In June, TV5 began to shoot its teleseryes in HD, starting with ‘Misibis Bay’ followed by ‘Undercover’. However, at the moment GMA has yet to divulge any plan of broadcasting their teleseryes with the use of high definition cameras.

This is a welcome development in the history of Philippine television, however it may take several years before the Philippines makes its full transition to high definition television. This year was the first step, however.