Lack of Full TV Coverage is Hurting the NCAA

NCAA coverage on television continue to be spotty at best. (Photo credit: GMA News Online)

President Noynoy Aquino’s State of the Nation Address will take place later this afternoon. Unfortunately, it is also a game day in the 90th NCAA season basketball tournament.

The NCAA doubleheader for this Monday afternoon will feature the San Beda-St. Benilde and Mapua-San Sebastian matches for both the juniors and seniors division. The seniors games are usually seen live on television, but due to today’s SONA, tape-delay broadcasts on the TV5 family of networks will be a likely scenario.

Television coverage has always been inconsistent for the Philippines’ oldest collegiate league. During the 1990s, when government TV stations PTV-4 and IBC-13 covered the games, only the opening day and championship matches were aired in full, with highlights of the other games relegated to their newscasts.

It only got worse in 2000, when the championship matches pitting St. Benilde and Jose Rizal College were not aired. Then in 2001, despite the guarantee of PTV-4 and Media Conglomerates, Inc. to air most of the matches, the NCAA tournament was reduced to a mere 30-minute highlight show called ‘Inside NCAA’, with opening day and championship matches being aired live.

In 2002, the NCAA decided to join forces with ABS-CBN Sports, with the league’s games now being featured on a regular basis. But with the UAAP already a fixture on Studio 23 (now ABS-CBN Sports+Action), the NCAA was relegated to a weekday-exclusive schedule, with non-televised games on Mondays. Still, it was a marginal improvement from the PTV-MCI era.

Ten years later, the NCAA signed a deal with Sports5 to cover their games. Initially airing over IBC-13 (via AKTV), the league was forced to return to UHF television via AksyonTV once the AKTV deal expired. In addition, TV5 aired the championship matches, before receiving a select slate of elimination games this year. This time, however, all games were aired on the said network.

Still, circumstances related to national events continued to affect the television coverage of the NCAA. Examples include the funeral of the late Corazon Aquino in 2009, the recent State of the Nation Addresses, and the Janet Lim-Napoles Pork Barrel hearings in 2013, which either led to pre-emptions or delayed broadcasts of the games. And more recently, the impromptu DAP address of President Aquino led to an abrupt end of Sports5’s live NCAA coverage.

In the end, it is clear that the NCAA is at a disadvantage. While television coverage is gradually improving, it is still far from a finished product. What the league needs now at this point is flexibility, from the scheduling to the availability of the venue, in order to take advantage of live television, and to satisfy the demands of loyal fans.

NCAA management should start learning from these experiences. Otherwise, the league will continue to feel its fair share of shortcomings on television coverage.

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Imbestigador Moves Back to Saturdays; Kap’s Amazing Stories Cancelled

Mike Enriquez’s long-running program ‘Imbestigador’ will now be aired on Saturday afternoons. (Photo credit: GMA Network)

After three years, ‘Imbestigador’ returns to its most comfortable perch, sort of.

GMA has announced that ‘Imbestigador’ will return to the Saturday slot starting July 12. But instead of airing in the evenings, as it has been the case since 2000, it will now be seen in the afternoons.

During its three-year run on Sunday nights, ‘Imbestigador’ saw its ratings sharply decline. This was mainly due to the popularity of opposing program ‘Gandang Gabi Vice’, and its shift from a reality documentation format to a dramatization-based format. It also didn’t help that ‘Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho’, its preceding program for the past several years, was extended from 60 to 90 minutes.

The move to Saturday afternoons should give ‘Imbestigador’ less pressure to perform. Instead of facing Vice Ganda, it will now face ‘SOCO: Scene of the Crime Operatives’, whose format may have inspired ‘Imbestigador”s new approach, and ‘Failon Ngayon’, whose format was similar to the ‘Imbestigador’ of old.

Still, it remains to be seen if the new timeslot will result in better ratings for Mike Enriquez’s long-running program.

Kap’s Amazing Stories Finally Cancelled

With host Bong Revilla still incarcerated for his role in the PDAF scam, GMA has decided to cancel ‘Kap’s Amazing Stories’ after nearly seven years.

The cancellation of ‘Kap’s Amazing Stories’ is intended to avoid any negative publicity in the light of Bong Revilla’s involvement in the PDAF scam. The senator was arrested on June 20, but ‘Kap’s Amazing Stories’ continued to air reruns until July 6.

But instead of creating a similar program on Sundays, GMA decided to add a fourth movie block in its timeslot. This new movie block will feature animated movies, and in typical GMA fashion, it will be dubbed in Filipino.

Clearly, GMA has shown a lack of proper direction in their programming. With five movie blocks and a pair of horror-based series, it is understandable why advertising has sharply declined for the network. And it didn’t help that rival ABS-CBN’s dominant weekend lineup has become a huge burden to GMA’s.

Unless they get rid of these movie blocks one by one, and replace them with more reliable programs, GMA’s programming problems will only continue. And Ramon Ang’s minority ownership won’t help matters.

Struggling and Controversial Celebrities on ‘Face the People’

The appearance of Freddie Aguilar on ‘Face the People’ set the table for more embattled celebrities to appear on the program in order to explain their issues. (Courtesy of TV5)

Several weeks ago, the appearance of embattled singer Freddie Aguilar on ‘Face the People’ caught the attention of many netizens. And while the program’s focus is on normal citizens settling their differences with the help of the audience, Aguilar’s appearance led to several other celebrities sitting down on ‘Face the People”s infamous ‘silya de konsensya’ (chair of conscience) to explain their issues.

Two weeks after Aguilar made his highly-anticipated appearance on ‘Face the People’, controversial lawyer Atty. Lorna Kapunan sat down to explain the reason behind her withdrawal of legal support from Pork Barrel whistleblower Janet Lim-Napoles. Throughout the episode NBN-ZTE scam whistleblower Jun Lozada and activist Krissy Conti provided explanation on why Kapunan should have not left Napoles, while Atty. Ferdinand Topacio defended Kapunan’s decision to withdraw. The audience eventually agreed on Kapunan’s decision to withdraw.

And last Friday, diminutive actress Mahal sat down to explain her thoughts on quitting showbiz. The rumors stemmed from an argument between her and Kissybabes members Kisses Castillano and Em-Em Basa, saying that Mahal is ‘too old and obsolescent’ to be an artist and that her face is only good for Halloween. During the episode both Kissybabes members and talent manager Jethro Carrey tried to explain why Mahal was not given a chance to shine, while Mahal’s best friend Julie Ann defended her attempt to come back. In the end, the audience convinced Mahal to give showbiz another shot.

Today’s episode of ‘Face the People’ will have Tiya Pusit sitting on the ‘silya de konsensya’. Like Freddie Aguilar’s appearance a few weeks ago, Tiya Pusit will try to explain her relationship with a younger person. This time her beau would be a 27-year-old man named Nathan Villa. Throughout the episode fellow actress and friend Vangie Labalan will appear to oppose her friend’s relationship, while gay comedian Inday Garutay come in to defend.

The celebrity appearances on ‘Face the People’ gave the program a new wrinkle. While it is primarily used to settle issues between ordinary people, the program now encourages celebrity appearances in order to provide a deeper and more contentious insight on the issues surrounding them. It may be a harsher route, but ‘Face the People”s concept really helps in building drama behind these issues.

Expect more celebrities to appear on ‘Face the People’, even if they only come once a week. Unlike ‘Startalk‘ and ‘Buzz ng Bayan’, this program is always willing to push the boundaries, regardless of how harsh it can be. And its tabloid-based approach always helps.

TV Coverage of Napoles Testimony

Janet Lim-Napoles appeared before the Senate today to testify regarding the Pork Barrel scandal. The much-anticipated testimony was covered by most free TV outlets. However, in an apparent deference, ABS-CBN’s free TV channel 2 and Studio 23 opted not to cover the event in full. Instead they only gave updates and partial live feeds on the ongoing testimony. Also, both AksyonTV and TV5 opted to end their coverage by 12:00 p.m. in order to air the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four.

Give every network credit for pooling their resources in order to bring ongoing updates and live coverage on the Napoles testimony. However, I have to criticize both ABS-CBN and TV5 for a variety of reasons. ABS-CBN, for its part, decided to air the entirety of the Napoles testimony exclusively on its cable networks DZMM TeleRadyo and ABS-CBN News Channel. And while they did air a snippet of the live coverage on Channel 2, it is simply not enough. They may have a high number of cable subscribers on its affiliate SkyCable, but they did not oblige to the most important commodity in television viewership: the masses.

TV5, for its part, ended their coverage to give way to the NCAA Final Four. Unfortunately, they covered the entire tournament on both TV5 and AksyonTV when in fact, they only need to air it on TV5 and defer the Napoles coverage to AksyonTV. For some reason AksyonTV wanted to simulcast the NCAA tournament as a ‘test broadcast’ in an effort to improve its signal and reach, something they have also done in the recently concluded PBA Governors’ Cup Finals. But on this day, AksyonTV failed to be the 24-hour news channel that viewers hoped, and their non-airing of Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago‘s press conference following the testimony was an insult to the network.

As for GMA News TV, they were able to commit in full to the testimony, even if they have incurred several no-shows in the past. They realized the importance of this issue, and I have to commend them for a job well done. Despite their reputation as a non-24 hour news channel, and their emphasis on tabloid-like reporting, they were able to give way to something national in scope, at least for today.

With the entire nation watching, Janet Lim-Napoles is now thrust in the spotlight, in what has been the most controversial scandal that rocked the government since the plunder case of President Joseph Estrada. And television networks are taking notice.

ERRATUM: TV5 continued to air the Napoles testimony and deferred to AksyonTV for the live NCAA Final Four coverage. Still, it would have been better if TV5 pushed through with the NCAA coverage and gave the Napoles coverage to AksyonTV instead.

In 100 Words: Million People March Part 2

Tomorrow will be the second installment of the Million People March, an event in which rallyists voice their anger and discontent against Pork Barrel. The first Million People March was held at the Quirino Grandstand, and attracted nearly a million protesters. Tomorrow’s event will be held at Ayala Avenue, Makati, and will start at 3:00 p.m, with the hope that they can attract the upper class and white collar workers into the march.

Heavy traffic is expected within the streets of Paseo de Roxas, Arnaiz, Chino Roces, Gil Puyat, Makati Avenue and EDSA. Fair weather is likely to occur tomorrow, but bringing various rain gear is still a must in case of rain. The protest will again provide an opportunity for protesters to shout against greed and corruption in the country.

Leila de Lima’s Announcement and Subsequent TV Coverage

It only took around 45 minutes, but Department of Justice secretary Leila de Lima swiftly announced the filing of plunder, malversation of public funds, bribery, and graft and corruption charges against Pork Barrel mastermind Janet Napoles, senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, and 34 others. Seconds after the charges were filed, media reporters rush in to grab documents of the said cases.

Even before the announcement was made, Senator Enrile had been rushed to the hospital after complaining of difficulty in urinating. It was also reported that once the charges against him were announced, he immediately proclaimed his innocence. Let’s face it, Enrile is an ailing 89-year old man, and accusing him of plunder at his advanced age is not what I want to see. The accusations against him would only hasten his already failing health, and may lead to his eventual death.

Senator Estrada had been accused of plunder before, when he and his father, former President and Manila mayor Joseph Estrada, were both charged relating to the Jose Velarde scandal twelve years earlier. Senator Revilla had also been involved in prior legal cases, both during his acting and ongoing political career. While both denied the accusations, Senator Estrada has said he is prepared to face the charges, while Senator Revilla said that the people should not judge him and his co-accusers this early in their ordeal.

In terms of television coverage, all of the major networks aired the live press conference of de Lima’s announcement. While GMA News TV, DZMM Teleradyo and the ABS-CBN News Channel were able to carry the live press conference, TV5 was forced to carry the announcement as sister station AksyonTV carried the live NCAA games. TV5’s live coverage of the announcement affected their programming; their ‘Sine Ko Singko’ program was delayed for several minutes, while another rerun of ‘Face to Face’ significantly cut the airtime allotted for the public service program ‘T3: Reload’. The Tulfo brothers’ program was reduced to 10 minutes rather than the standard 30, and time constraints prevented any complainants from voicing some of their complaints on national TV. If I were News5 head Luchi Cruz-Valdes, I would tell TV5 president Noel Lorenzana to stop airing reruns of ‘Face to Face’ and instead replace it with any of News5’s public affairs programs, or the live simulcast of Radyo5 92.3 News FM‘s ‘Cristy FerMinute’, because it is becoming too annoying.

Meanwhile, the trial for the plunder case against Napoles and 37 other co-conspirators will be announced soon, and is expected to be carried live by all of the major networks.