Tag Archives: Top Story

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New Trend: GMA Responds to It’s Showtime Going Overtime

Looks like a new trend in primetime newscasts has begun.

In response to ‘TV Patrol’ now airing at around 6:40 p.m. due to ‘It’s Showtime’ exceeding beyond its allotted time, GMA countered by having rival newscast ’24 Oras’ air 10-20 minutes later than its previous timeslot. To do that, GMA intentionally allowed one of its programs to go past its duration.

That turned out to be the teleserye ‘Ika-6 na Utos’, which usually airs for only 45-50 minutes at best. But Wednesday afternoon (see episode hashtag below) saw ‘Ika-6 na Utos’ go beyond its usual running time and air for 80 minutes, uncharacteristically long for a teleserye.

GMA’s version of Vice Ganda and company excessively talking for minutes came by way of long commercial breaks. But much like what ABS-CBN allowed (whether intentional or not) ‘It’s Showtime’ to do, isn’t this a little too much for viewers to take?

Consider this: ‘It’s Showtime”s archrival ‘Eat Bulaga’ is only given 2 1/2 hours of airtime by GMA from Monday to Friday due to its blocktimer status. GMA can’t obviously loosen this rule because even Antonio Tuviera is strict enough to enforce such a ruling.

They also cannot allow ‘Wowowin’ to go past its allotted time and go live because of Willie Revillame’s past controversies. The onus fell on one of GMA’s afternoon teleseryes, and that turned out to be its highest-rated program ‘Ika-6 na Utos’.

This is definitely a bad case of ‘fight fire with fire’. The recent shenanigans of ABS-CBN and GMA dragged its other programs down, and it also affected the airtimes of the respective networks’ late-night newscasts in ‘Bandila’ and ‘Saksi’.

If this game of one-upsmanship continues, both ‘TV Patrol’ and ’24 Oras’ might end up airing at an uncharacteristically late timeslot of 7:00 p.m. Not a good way to kick off the primetime slate.

But at least there are earlier primetime newscasts that viewers can tune in to. The choices include PTV-4’s ‘PTV News’ (if viewers can tolerate Erwin Tulfo’s biased reporting), CNN Philippines’ ‘News Night’, Net 25’s ‘Mata ng Agila’, UNTV’s ‘Ito ang Balita’ and even ‘Top Story’ of the ABS-CBN News Channel.

Apologies to T5N’s ‘Aksyon Prime’, but its timeslot inconsistencies are too much to handle. But regardless of that, alternatives in primetime news are worth the time and money.

Still, ABS-CBN and GMA should know all too well that time is precious. They could at least adjust this new trend in primetime programming, but they need to stop allowing its programs to go overtime so as not to compromise the patience of viewers.

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Live Blog: 2017 ASEAN Summit on ANC (Part IV)

The 2017 ASEAN Summit is up and running, as heads of ASEAN nations as well as other world dignitaries converge to discuss various political issues that affect both their countries and the world. At around the same time, the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit also takes place, focusing on business concerns surrounding the ASEAN region.

The ABS-CBN News Channel and CNN Philippines are the primary channels that will cover in detail the ASEAN Summit. For this live blog, I will focus on ANC, so keep refreshing this blog for the latest updates on their coverage.

4:30 p.m.

Newly-appointed Palace spokesperson Harry Roque just finished his press conference at the 2017 ASEAN Summit. After two weeks, it looks like the former congressman has warmed himself up to his new position.

And ‘Market Edge’ was extended for another 30 minutes. Oh well, ANC is going non-stop from this point forward.

4:40 p.m.

Karmina Constantino returns with ‘The Bureau’, and she kicks it off with live coverage of the 20th ASEAN-China Summit.

Now back to the newsroom as they close doors to the summit anew. If you were wondering why the main studio is not used after 9:35 a.m. on weekdays, it is because the set is used for weekly ANC talk shows.

5:10 p.m.

Lexi Schulze was supposed to go on board for ‘ANC Alerts’ at this time of the day, but with all the updates regarding the ASEAN Summit, ‘The Bureau’ is still up and running. Also, Christian Esguerra returned for another roundup of ASEAN Summit news.

This is just the afternoon edition of ‘The Bureau’ though. An evening edition, this time anchored by Ron Cruz, airs at 7:00 p.m. and is likewise devoted to foreign news.

5:25 p.m.

‘The Bureau’ just ended; however ‘Top Story’ will come in next. Oh well, it looks like our ANC personalities are putting their game faces on.

Day 2 of ANC’s coverage is about to enter the 12th hour. You got to give credit to these guys for staying around long enough to deliver the news on the ASEAN Summit each and every time.

5:30 p.m.

KC is still around for ‘Top Story’. Other than a 30-minute respite, she has been inside the ANC newsroom studio for the entire afternoon.

ANC anchors are like warriors in the desk, keeping a sharp eye on the news for long hours without complaint. KC has been doing this for over a decade now so we got to salute her for that.

5:40 p.m.

Speaking of warriors, Cathy Yang is back, microphone and all, interviewing BDO and SM’s Tessie Sy-Coson. She has been at Solaire for nearly half a day now.

6:00 p.m.

After another report from Christian, Lexi finally makes an appearance, doing a shortened version of ‘ANC Alerts’ during ‘Top Story’. Better late than never.

After that, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the audience at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit. The whirlwind day doesn’t end yet.

6:15 p.m. 

While Prime Minister Modi was speaking, President Duterte was hosting the ASEAN-Korea Summit. Again it will be closed to public viewing after a few short minutes.

ANC is closing in on the 13th hour of their coverage. Damn this is getting even more interesting.

6:20 p.m.

Every Monday is The Explainer day. And as always, ANC’s resident commentator Manolo Quezon does his Teddy Locsin impression with his thoughts on the ASEAN Summit.

Didn’t we mention that he is related to the former Commonwealth president Manuel Quezon?

6:30 p.m.

Bill Velasco and Boyet Sison are supposed to come in for ‘Hardball’. However, ANC’s special coverage of the ASEAN Summit will force said show to air on a later date.

6:35 p.m.

Looks like ‘Hardball’ will come in after all. Oh well, another break.

7:00 p.m.

Back up and running for the last stretch. Now watching ‘The Bureau’ evening edition, and since Ron Cruz is not around for the day, Raine Musñgi is filling in for him.

If you are familiar with the ‘Voice of ABS-CBN’ Peter Musñgi, then Raine is his biological daughter. It does run in the family.

7:15 p.m.

Wonder why Raine does not appear often on ANC? According to her social media pages, Raine also acts as a producer off-camera, managing news reports behind the scenes.

At least she is very productive, so no problem. In the meantime, Michelle Ong is back to bring in the latest at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit.

7:30 p.m.

That will do it for the live blog of ANC’s 2017 ASEAN Summit coverage. Overall I was very impressed with their consistent and tireless presentation, going all-out with blow-by-blow reports of the goings-on in both Solaire Resort and Casino and at the CCP Complex.

There were some mistakes and issues that they endured, but other than that, it was all smooth-sailing for Team ANC. However, this is just Day 2 of their coverage, so expect almost the same type of coverage come tomorrow morning all the way to the night.

In the meantime, I am going to wait for ABS-CBN’s 2017 Christmas Station ID. I’m sure our favorite ANC personalities are here as well.

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A Look at the ‘New and Improved’ ANC

The ABS-CBN News Channel continues to get better.

The past few months saw a gradual makeover in ANC’s programming lineup. It all started in late January when the sports-centric newscast ‘Gametime’ premiered with ABS-CBN Sports analyst Migs Bustos at the helm.

To give way to ‘Gametime’, ANC needed to make some sacrifices. First, the network’s flagship newscast ‘The World Tonight’ was shortened back to its original 30-minute duration, then ‘Market Edge with Cathy Yang’ made some slight changes to their running time; the 9:00 a.m. edition was cut to 30 minutes, while the 3:00 p.m. edition was extended to an hour.

Late February saw another new addition to the ANC family, as longtime international news anchor Annalisa Burgos joined the network. Her arrival also led to a rebrand of ANC’s early morning newscast, with ‘Mornings @ ANC’ morphing to ‘Early Edition’.

The following week, ANC shored up its afternoon and primetime lineups as well. Here is a look at the 4:30-8:00 p.m. weekday schedule:

  • 4:30 p.m. – Hot Copy on Headstart
  • 5:00 p.m. – ANCalerts
  • 5:30 p.m. – Top Story
  • 6:30 p.m. – Hardball (M), Green Living (TU), Mukha (W), Dayaw (TH), Cityscape (F)
  • 7:00 p.m. – The Bureau
  • 7:30 p.m. – Talkback (M), Beyond Politics (TU), Future Perfect (W), The Boss (TH), Shoptalk (F)

To summarize, ‘ANCalerts’, ‘Top Story’ and ANC’s human interest shows were bumped by 30 minutes, while ‘Hot Copy on Headstart’ was moved two hours earlier. A primetime edition of ‘The Bureau’, anchored by Ron Cruz, was added, while ‘Talkback’, ‘Beyond Politics’ and ‘Shoptalk’ were shortened to 30 minutes.

Finally, the ‘Early Edition’ segment ‘Matters of Fact’ was given replay schedules as well. Hosted by Christian Esguerra, ‘Matters of Fact’ replays are aired on weekdays at 11:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m.

The weekend schedule was slightly tweaked as well. Other than replays of ANC’s talk and human interest programs, the only significant move by the network came when ‘On the Money’, a financial advice program hosted by Edric Mendoza and Salve Duplito, was moved to 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays.

After all that analyzing, it is pretty clear that the ABS-CBN News braintrust has done a very good job improving what has been a very superior product. Kudos to Ging Reyes and Nadia Trinidad for once again playing key roles in maintaining ANC’s status as the Philippines’ premier news network.

The process, of course, was a long and carefully thought one. But at the end of the day, there is no stopping the ABS-CBN News Channel in their continuous quest to innovate and satisfy the needs of business leaders and decision makers.

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