Radyo5 Should Let Go of Punto Asintado

The post-Erwin Tulfo era in ‘Punto Asintado’ is off to an unimpressive start.

Nearly a month after Erwin Tulfo left TV5 on his own terms, the show that Erwin left behind is still searching for a permanent and regular host. At the moment, four different hosts have filled in on ‘Punto Asintado’.

They are:

• Mae Anne Los Baños
• Maricel Halili
• Alex Tinsay
• Atty. Mel Sta. Maria

Call it an unstable bunch. While the four hosts are willing and able to fill the chair, their other roles within and beyond News5 prevent them from hosting ‘Punto Asintado’ on a regular basis.

Alex Tinsay, for example, is also the host of ‘Aksyon Solusyon’ on weekdays and ‘Metro Sabado’ on Saturdays. He is also one of the hosts of ‘The 700 Club Asia’ on the GMA family of networks.

Atty. Mel Sta. Maria is the host of ‘Relasyon’ alongside Gladys Lana-Lucas (by default; original host Luchi Cruz-Valdes no longer appears on the show since June). He also fills in for Orly Mercado on ‘Orly Mercado All Ready’ on occasion, and outside Radyo5, is the dean of Far Eastern University Institute of Law.

Both Mae Anne Los Baños and Maricel Halili serve as News5 reporters. Mae Anne was one of the anchors of ‘Balita Alas-Singko’ while Maricel hosts ‘Iba Yung Pinoy’ on Sunday afternoons.

The rotating host situation in ‘Punto Asintado’ is a microcosm of the overall situation that is going on at Radyo5 92.3 News FM. Throughout the past year, some of the station’s personalities left for various reasons, and the fact that Radyo5 executives have failed to fill in the gaps made it clear that the station’s days are numbered.

When every listener thinks of ‘Punto Asintado’, Erwin Tulfo will always come to mind. This show will always be identified with him, even though he had some co-hosts in Cheryl Cosim and Martin Andanar along the way.

Perhaps Radyo5 would be wise to cancel ‘Punto Asintado’ at this point because it makes no sense continuing the show without its most identifiable personality. The show is and will always belong to Erwin Tulfo regardless of where he goes.

As for the situation at the chair, Radyo5 may need to call Ed Lingao and Lourd de Veyra’s number. A new morning show with either one of them could mitigate the loss of one of Radyo5’s standout programs.

One can only hope that Radyo5 will do the right thing when it comes to the 8:00 a.m. weekday slot. Time is of the essence, so good luck to them in figuring out this mess.

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AksyonTV’s ‘Wow Mali’ Moment

Yesterday morning marked a hilarious moment for AksyonTV.

With the PBA quarterfinals scheduled to begin later that afternoon, AksyonTV’s hookup with Radyo5 92.3 News FM started much earlier at 7:30 a.m. ‘Punto Asintado’ was supposed to air on that timeslot, but with Martin Andanar ill and Erwin Tulfo arriving late, its preceding program, ‘Orly Mercado All Ready’, extended its airtime instead.

AksyonTV then made a bit of a gaffe when the title graphics for ‘Punto Asintado’ were flashed, only to see Orly Mercado and his show continue beyond schedule. Because Erwin Tulfo always arrives at 8:00 a.m. regardless of the station’s schedule, Orly decided to continue his program rather than shift to ‘Punto Asintado’, in contrast to his usual substitute Atty. Mel Sta. Maria’s practice.

Time constraints prevented ‘Punto Asintado’ from calling both the MMDA Metro Traffic Base and PAGASA for their daily traffic and weather reports, and instead, for the remainder of the show, Erwin interviewed some guests via phone and read comments from netizens with regards to the topics at hand.

It was a funny moment for the said network, but it should also teach them a valuable lesson. Let’s just hope that this minor glitch will not affect AksyonTV and TV5 in the near future.

A Full-Time Return to TV5 for the PBA

The defending grand slam champions Purefoods Star Hotshots (formerly San Mig Super Coffee Mixers) and 11 other teams will once again wage war as the PBA kicks off its 40th season on the TV5 family of networks. (Photo credit: Purefoods Star Hotshots official Facebook)

The Philippine Basketball Association is definitely back on TV5.

Starting with the 2014-15 season, all games of the PBA will now be seen on the flagship TV5 network every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Kapatid network last aired a full slate of PBA games during the 2007-08 season, when it was still under the ABC branding.

As a result of the PBA’s full-time return to TV5, here is the new schedule that will be implemented during weekday games:

4:15 p.m. – PBA first game

6:30 p.m. – Aksyon Prime

7:00 p.m. – PBA second game

9:15 p.m. – Wattpad Presents

9:45 p.m. – The Amazing Race Philippines 2

There will be no changes to the schedules on Saturdays and Sundays, as the PBA games usually occupy the more vacant slots.

In addition, Radyo5 92.3 News FM will now air a majority of the PBA games for its radio listeners. As a result, here is the weekday schedule for Radyo5 during PBA game days:

6:00 a.m. – Orly Mercado All Ready

7:30 a.m. – Punto Asintado

9:00 a.m. – Bitag Live

10:00 a.m. – Aksyon Solusyon

11:00 a.m. – Cristy FerMinute

12:30 p.m. – Relasyon

2:00 p.m. – Wanted sa Radyo

4:15 p.m. – PBA first game

6:30 p.m. – Aksyon Prime

7:00 p.m. – PBA second game

9:15 p.m. – Remoto Control

Radyo5 will also air Sunday games in lieu of its all-music program ‘Sunday By Heart’. However, it remains to be seen if they will also carry Saturday playdates, since the majority of these games will be held in the provinces.

In a related development, Sports5 announced that AksyonTV will once again simulcast the PBA games. Last season, AksyonTV carried the bulk of the PBA schedule, which unfortunately, brought not only criticism but also confusion from the viewing public.

This time around, however, the simulcast of the PBA games on AksyonTV seem more like a need rather than an option for the embattled station. Following the demise of AKTV and the integration of Sports5 events to AksyonTV, the station has been criticized for airing too many re-runs whenever there are no sports events to cover, since the ‘AksyonTV originals’ were cancelled just for this move.

For cable subscribers, Fox Sports Asia will continue to air the PBA games on Wednesdays, with English-language commentary from Sports5 announcers. They will also air the cup finals in its entirety.

Hyper will also air replays of the PBA games, albeit exclusive only to Cignal subscribers. And finally, for online subscribers, the PBA can now be seen via livestreaming on the official PBA on Sports5 website.

In two days, the 2014-15 PBA Philippine Cup gets underway. For the 12 teams participating, and to the TV5 family of networks, good luck in giving the fans a whole lot of basketball action all season long.

Back to ‘Normal’ Ways for AksyonTV

AksyonTV brought back reruns of programs such as ‘Cocktales’ following the conclusion of the 2014 Asian Games. (Photo credit: Daphne.ph)

After sharing the coverage of the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup and the Asian Games with TV5, it is back to ‘normal’ for the embattled AksyonTV.

The conclusion of these sports events means that re-runs of old AksyonTV and TV5 programs were once again occupying the network’s vacant hours.  Other than the ongoing NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the rest of AksyonTV’s content reverted back to where they were in the summer of 2014.

AksyonTV’s return to a rerun-based programming does not help their cause at all, and it is clear that they are in extremely bad shape to compete against the likes of ABS-CBN Sports+Action, 9TV and GMA News TV.

Back in May, I wrote about the need to improve AksyonTV’s programming. In summarizing the needs of AksyonTV to improve in order to be competitive, here are my suggestions:

1. Eliminate the dependence of simulcasting TV5’s newscasts, and produce their own that do not conflict with the mother network.
2. Make Radyo5’s ‘Orly Mercado All Ready’ as the main morning show of the network.
3. Produce more original programs.

Since then, however, AksyonTV’s programming quality got even worse, despite the return of Radyo5 programs ‘Aksyon Solusyon’ and ‘Remoto Control’ to the fold.

In July, the network stopped producing ‘Aksyon Breaking’ and ‘Aksyon Weather’ updates, as well as ‘Andar ng mga Balita’ and ‘Balitang 60’. Then in September, old programs such as ‘Cocktales’ and ‘Wasak’ were brought back.

In addition, the network decided not to air new episodes of ‘Demolition Job’ and ‘History with Lourd’, as well as a new program called ‘Unang Tikim’. Instead previous episodes of KBO were re-aired, much to the dismay of its viewers.

For AksyonTV, this is an already alarming situation. Instead of trying to improve the network’s programming quality, it seems like the management is becoming extremely casual in operating the lackluster station, especially when there are no sports events to cover.

If TV5 wants to upgrade and improve the status of its UHF counterpart, the management should start acting on this matter right now. Otherwise, AksyonTV’s days will be numbered, to the point where a permanent sign off is difficult to resist.

AksyonTV is definitely a good network to watch. But with the kind of programming they have right now, this will not help their standing among the other major UHF networks.

AksyonTV Needs Improvement

AksyonTV’s programming is in a dire need of improvement. (Logo courtesy of ABC Development Corporation).

In a previous article, I discussed about TV5’s continuous programming rebuild. And while management has been trying their best to improve Channel 5, the same cannot be said of its sister network on the UHF band, which has been in a state of regression since last year.

AksyonTV, once the only all-Filipino 24/7 news channel, has been on the decline of late. Back in January I wrote about some of the changes that took place within the said network, and I waited a while in hopes of watching them flip the switch. A few months later, poof. AksyonTV’s became a shell of its former self.

The decline of the network is noticeable in its programming. Replays of TV5’s public affairs programs become more frequent, while live simulcasts of TV5 newscasts were seemingly more distracting than ever thanks to the increasing amount of sports events. Not even an evening replay of its morning newscast ‘Andar ng mga Balita’ helped matters.

So what to do with the mess that is engulfing AksyonTV? Here are my thoughts towards improving the network.

First of all, simulcasting TV5’s newscasts should stop. I mean, no more ‘Good Morning Ser’, ‘Aksyon’ and ‘Pilipinas News’ on Channel 41. The best that AksyonTV could do at this point is to have ‘Andar ng mga Balita’ as its late morning/noontime newscast, and ‘Balitang 60’ as its 9:00 p.m. newscast. That way, AksyonTV helps spread out the news in case of up-to-the-minute reports, while attracting late-arriving viewers that want some more news updates.

Secondly, make ‘Orly Mercado All Ready’ as the network’s early morning program. At this point, the now-truncated ‘Good Morning Ser’ have left the 7:00 a.m. slot open to rerun programming, which does not bode well to AksyonTV. Having Orly Mercado simulcast his radio program on television will help matters.

And finally, AksyonTV needs to go back and produce its original programs. The lineup of AksyonTV, other than the presence of live sports events, is wide open. Adding some new original and informative programs will help balance the equilibrium, while at the same time reestablishing its reputation as a reliable news station.

In short, AksyonTV should not become fodder to TV5’s programs. Instead, they should focus on a different set of programs to a different set of audience. That way, AksyonTV will become more stable, more reliable, and more driven in providing viewers more information to digest. And that improvement should commence as soon as possible.

Radyo5 Still Preferred Over DZMM, DZBB On the Road

Radyo5 92.3 News FM remains the leading all-news station for drivers in Metro Manila.

Four years ago, TV5 made a daring decision to launch Radyo5 92.3 News FM, the first all-news radio station on the FM band. They even made a catchphrase to promote the move, telling listeners to leave the old and distorted sounds of the AM band (“Iwanan mo na ang lumang tunog ng AM”).  This year, Radyo5’s reputation continues to grow, even as it remains the only such station on the FM band.

The PSRC Car Coincidental Survey recently ranked Radyo5 as the most preferred all-news radio station among Metro Manila motorists in 2013, ahead of traditional AM radio rivals DZMM Radyo Patrol 630 and Super Radyo DZBB 594. While it is unfair to compare Radyo5 to the AM stations of ABS-CBN and GMA due to its difference in modulation, the fact that more and more drivers are shifting to Radyo5 for its clearer sound and lack of distortion compared to its AM contemporaries only justified its No. 1 ranking.

This past year, Radyo5 welcomed Ben Tulfo and Orly Mercado to its stable of hosts. Ben, who along with brothers Erwin and Raffy host ‘T3: Reload’ on TV5, brought his ‘Bitag Live’ program to the station, while Orly returned to the broadcast booth via ‘Orly Mercado: All Ready’. In addition, the station moved from the old Novaliches studios to the TV5 Media Center in Mandaluyong, just in time to welcome 2014.

All told, 2014 is shaping up to be an even better year for Radyo5, especially now that they have upgraded their facilities and relocated to the virtual center of Metro Manila. And with the drivers continuing to prefer Radyo5 over its AM counterparts, expect the station to once again top the motorists’ surveys.