GMA’s Astig Authority To Be Reduced In Favor of Heart of Asia Reruns

GMA’s anime fans should expect another rude awakening next week.

Starting this Monday, GMA’s Astig Authority block will be reduced to two hours. This will give way to yet another Heart of Asia rerun in ‘Secret Garden’.

The Koreanovela first aired on the Kapuso network four years ago via the Telebabad block. It starred Hyun Bin of ‘My Name is Kim Sam Soon’ fame, and Ha Ji Won of ‘Hwang Jini’ fame.

‘Secret Garden’ will relegate ‘Knock Out’ (known in Japan as ‘Hajime no Ippo’) to an earlier timeslot, while replacing ‘Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic’ in the morning lineup.

Over the years, GMA’s animes have been able to fare well against their ABS-CBN counterparts, despite being criticized for frequently re-airing them on a seemingly annual basis. Classic animes like ‘Ghost Fighter’ (known in Japan as ‘YuYu Hakusho’), the ‘Dragon Ball’ series and ‘Slam Dunk’ remain popular with anime fans, while new titles are also attracting new viewers.

This despite the fact that GMA rarely promotes the programs of the Astig Authority block at all, in contrast to ABS-CBN’s Umaganda.

The same cannot be said for their Asianovelas, though. While Heart of Asia had some decent success and heavy promotion, it never earned quite the same following as the animes of Astig Authority, especially when they were re-aired for a second time and beyond.

That said, it was a mistake for the Kapuso network to sacrifice Astig Authority in favor of a Heart of Asia rerun, especially with ABS-CBN a non-factor in the early morning hours. GMA’s success in the early mornings is due in part to its animes, and giving way for an Asianovela will definitely hurt their loyal anime fanbase.

For now, though, they are giving their Asianovela fans a second chance. If successful, they should look forward to either another or a new Asianovela, otherwise they will need to once again extend the Astig Authority block.

‘Secret Garden’ returns this Monday after ‘Knock Out’ and before ‘Two Mothers’.

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So Long, ‘Basta Every Day Happy’

‘Basta Every Day Happy’ officially bowed out yesterday morning. (Photo credit: GMA Network)

For the first time since December 30, 2011, Chef Boy Logro has no weekday program on the GMA Network.

‘Basta Every Day Happy’, the talk show hosted by Alessandra de Rossi, Gladys Reyes, Donita Rose and the aforementioned Chef Boy Logro, officially bowed out of the airwaves yesterday morning. As a result,  GMA replaced ‘Basta Every Day Happy’ with yet another rerun of ‘Slam Dunk’.

This left GMA without a local program in between ‘Unang Hirit’ and ‘The Ryzza Mae Show’. Considering their so-called ‘success’ with the ‘Astig Authority’ block, they may have made a wise decision, but rival ABS-CBN’s late morning programs like ‘The Singing Bee’ prove otherwise.

Debuting on May 12, 2014, ‘Basta Every Day Happy’ was GMA’s latest attempt at producing their own talk show (‘The Ryzza Mae Show’ doesn’t count since it is produced by blocktimer TAPE, Inc.).  However, it had consistently low ratings, leading to yet another short run for a post-‘SIS’ GMA talk show.

Worse, GMA placed ‘Basta Every Day Happy’ to an unfavorable timeslot (opposite Kapamilya shows like ‘The Singing Bee’), further accelerating its demise. Had it been placed opposite ABS-CBN’s equally low-rated morning show ‘Kris TV’, ‘Basta Every Day Happy’ would have fared much better.

Instead, GMA’s most recent morning talk show became an expected thumbs down, as previously predicted on From the Tube.

So what’s next for GMA after ‘Basta Every Day Happy’?

For now, they’ll live and die with the ‘Astig Authority’ block and their high propensity to re-air classic animes for ‘loyal’ audiences. But without the support of local programming, GMA will have a harder time competing against ABS-CBN’s programs, unless drastic things happen within the next few weeks.

As for Chef Boy Logro, he will still be a regular on the Kapuso network, as his other show, GMA News TV’s ‘Idol sa Kusina’, continues to air today. The future of his co-hosts, however, remain uncertain.

‘Basta Every Day Happy’ was a good show, had GMA made the right choices. But every misstep comes with a price, and in the end, it was GMA’s questionable decisions which cost another of their shows.

This is definitely not a good way to start 2015 for the embattled folks inside Timog Avenue, especially when it started with another programming casualty.

If ABS-CBN and GMA Traded Shows…

Mr. Bean will return to ABS-CBN, but the character may be better off showing his comedic artistry to the Kapusos at GMA 7.

While watching a Tagalized and ‘intentionally’ edited episode of ‘Spongebob Squarepants‘ on ABS-CBN, I saw a program advisory at the bottom promoting the return of the Mr. Bean series on the Kapamilya network. Ok, that’s a given, because they need a program to fill in the usually off-peak early morning schedules. But Mr. Bean? You got to be kidding.

Mr. Bean, as I know, has been the property of ABS-CBN for a decade now. It began airing on Studio 23 on Saturday nights, with the animated shows in the morning. Then it was moved to the main Channel 2, and aired sporadically on weekday mornings, regardless of the live or animated version. Before that it used to air on PTV 4 and ABC (now TV5).

I always don’t like the way ABS-CBN aired Mr. Bean. They tend to edit some skits and combine one from a particular episode with another from a different episode. Worse, they only allotted 15 minutes of airtime, as opposed to the 30 minutes in a full episode. The airing of Mr. Bean on the Kapamilya network is both an insult and a disgrace to loyal Mr. Bean faithful.

So what if ABS-CBN and GMA traded their morning programs for each other? It has been well-documented that a few shows would move from one station to another in order to either give way to other programs or to purchase airing rights for future production. I have seen several programs air on both Kapuso and Kapamilya stations; programs such as ‘Eat Bulaga‘, ‘Meteor Garden‘ and ‘Rosalinda’ come to mind. But if I were the boss of either networks, I would suggest that ABS-CBN must give up Mr. Bean and send it to GMA, and in return GMA will trade rights for the animes such as ‘Pokemon’, ‘Dragon Ball’, ‘Yu Yu Hakusho’ (Ghost Fighter), ‘Slam Dunk’ and others in exchange for ABS-CBN’s ‘Digimon’, ‘Naruto Shippuden‘ and others. Of course, I would like to see a different morning look in both the Kapuso and Kapamilya stations.

In the meantime, ABS-CBN and GMA will continue to air ‘boring’ programming during the off-peak morning hours. Unless they make up their minds and trade their programs for each other, weekday mornings will continue to remain that way: ‘boring’.