GMA’s Astig Authority a Sinking Ship Thanks to Magandang Buhay

How the mighty have fallen.

The past few days have not been kind to GMA’s Astig Authority block, and it showed in the recent ratings posted by the more ‘national’ Kantar firm. As seen in these figures below, it is clear that the block has lost the interest of the public while rival ‘Magandang Buhay’ is beginning to gain momentum with each passing episode.

February 27, 2017

Magandang Buhay (8.1%) vs. Ghost Fighter (5.9%) / Pokemon Xy (6.7%) / Bleach (7.3%)

March 6, 2017

Magandang Buhay (7.5%) vs. Ghost Fighter (5.9%) / Pokemon Xy (6.7%) / Bleach (7.1%)

March 13, 2017

Magandang Buhay (8.2%) vs. Ghost Fighter (6.3%) / Pokemon Xy (6.9%) / Bleach (7.5%)

March 14, 2017

Magandang Buhay (8.3%) vs. Ghost Fighter (5.8%) / Pokemon Xy (6.5%) / Bleach (6.9%)

March 15, 2017

Magandang Buhay (7.8%) vs. Ghost Fighter (5.7%) /  Pokemon Xy (6.9%) / Bleach (6.7%)

So what is the common denominator in these five episodes? Basically ‘Magandang Buhay”s guests came from ABS-CBN’s three top-rated shows in ‘It’s Showtime’, ‘Ang Probinsyano’ and the recently concluded ‘Pinoy Big Brother: Lucky 7’, and the constant top-notch performances of the three shows carried over to the former.

On the other hand, anime’s declining interest on free-to-air television is hitting Astig Authority hard. The fact that Filipino anime fans are moving over to cable and internet for their anime needs, not to mention GMA’s constant overreliance on old anime, is something that the network has yet to realize at this point.

One can only look at ABS-CBN’s controversial decision to cease airing anime in June of last year. The only difference here is that ABS-CBN has the digital TV channel Yey! and the cable channel Hero to back them up, whereas GMA doesn’t have the benefit of sister cable channels to constantly commit to a variety of anime.

Speaking of relying too much on reruns, GMA just announced that a long-awaited Filipino redub of ‘Voltes V’ (voiced by young GMA stars) will hit the airwaves next Monday. This should only make things worse for Astig Authority, as the classic Japanese mecha anime has been re-aired multiple times since 1977.

That said, unless GMA plans a new programming strategy, the slumping fortunes of Astig Authority may continue to last for a longer period. For a network once proud of bringing successful anime titles to the Filipino mainstream, this is unacceptable to say the least.

In the end, GMA must accept reality and move on, because airing anime on free TV is no longer a thing at this point (unless you’re TV5 and you’re willing to bring new animes with it). No offense, but the time is now for GMA to have something else to offer every weekday morning.

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AniMega Has a New Timeslot, Plus Other Updates on TV5’s Weekday Schedule

TV5’s AniMega block was moved from weekday mornings to weekday afternoons beginning last Monday. (Logo courtesy of TV5)

Another tweak took place on TV5’s weekday lineup.

As reported by Anime Pilipinas, the AniMega block was moved from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, effective last Monday. The new AniMega lineup consists of:

• Transformers: Animated
• Rockman.EXE Beast
• Street Fighter
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple

In doing so, TV5 avoided competing with the animes of ABS-CBN and GMA and instead focused on alternative programming in a slot dominated by noontime shows and teleseryes.

But while TV5 gave anime fans a favor, they did not announce a replacement for the vacated slot of AniMega. Instead, ‘Movie Max 5’ filled in following the TV5 Kids block, which is by far the earliest timeslot for movies on TV5 since the takeover by Manny V. Pangilinan.

There were also questions as to what happened to ‘Healing Galing’ and ‘Solved na Solved’, the two shows that briefly shared the 10:30 a.m. slot for two weeks. At the moment, it remains to be seen whether or not the two shows were cancelled or up for renewal, so wait for further updates.

With ‘Healing Galing’ and ‘Solved na Solved’ currently out of the picture, and with ‘Movie Max 5’ now part of the morning lineup, ‘Happy Wife, Happy Life’ was moved to a new time of 10:15 a.m. The lifestyle show recently added Mariel Rodriguez-Padilla as its new co-host, replacing original hosts Jeck Maierhofer and RR Enriquez.

Other than the aforementioned changes in TV5’s weekday lineup, the rest of the list remain untouched.

Regardless, the transfer of AniMega to weekday afternoons is a huge boost for TV5. Their continued push for alternative programming became a factor to this decision, and it should benefit the block’s fierce and loyal anime fanbase in the long term.

It remains to be seen if TV5’s anime fans are buying into this matter, but from the looks of it, this is perhaps one of the best decisions TV5 has made to date.