Tag Archives: YouTube

Philippines, Sports, television

UAAP Final Four and Finals to Stream Only on iWant and ABS-CBN Sports Website

Talk about making some restrictions.

The UAAP Season 81 men’s basketball Final Four is currently in progress with Ateneo already clinching the first slot of the Finals while Adamson and UP continue to dispute the other ticket. Unfortunately for viewers who are on a road trip or are away from home, they only have two choices to watch the rest of the tournament.

On ABS-CBN Sports’ official YouTube page, they posted a live stream of rolling advisories redirecting viewers to watch the UAAP Final Four on iWant and ABS-CBN Sports’ official website. The statement that will greet viewers is as follows:

“Watch all the games of the Final Four live on sports.abs-cbn.com or iwant.ph!”

In short, there is no live stream of the UAAP Final Four on ABS-CBN Sports’ YouTube channel at all. Instead, viewers can only watch the games online for free on the ABS-CBN Sports website or the iWant app (the latter requires user registration).

The same approach will apply during the UAAP women’s basketball stepladder playoffs, of which ABS-CBN Sports began covering in earnest. Considering last week’s debacle during the cheerdance competition (the YouTube stream crashed on occasion due to the heavy volume of viewers), it only made sense for ABS-CBN to avoid a repeat of such incident.

It also encourages the network to take full use of other sporting events that would have otherwise been inaccessible to the public. For instance, the Premier Volleyball League and the NCAA Season 94 women’s volleyball tournament will still be available live and free on the ABS-CBN Sports YouTube channel, because the network wants to promote the sport of volleyball very seriously.

As for the possibility of airing the men’s basketball finals anew on ABS-CBN Channel 2, it remains to be seen if the network will still push through with the plan. Considering ‘It’s Showtime”s recent penchant for working overtime, ABS-CBN Sports executives might as well stick with only S+A and live stream for the series.

The UAAP men’s basketball Final Four continues Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. with Adamson and UP disputing the last Finals slot. Game 1 of the Finals will begin Saturday.

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Philippines, Sports, television

ABS-CBN Sports to Televise All Games of the PVL Open Conference

“WE NEED IT!”

This is perhaps the plea of volleyball fans as the Premier Volleyball League enters its season-ending Open Conference. Having said that, ABS-CBN’s decision to finally televise every match of the Open Conference came as part of a harsh lesson learned during the Reinforced Conference.

Back in May, ABS-CBN Sports received plenty of criticism for the live streaming issues that took place during a PVL On Tour stop at Tuguegarao. Reluctantly, the network was forced to air weekend games on S+A for the remainder of the tournament before it televised every game of the finals.

Regarding the PVL Collegiate Conference, the exhibition nature of the tournament meant that only the first playdate and the finals were aired on S+A while the other games were aired on live stream. But ABS-CBN Sports, for its part, was able to address its concerns on live stream access by offering the PVL games on YouTube free of charge.

Which leads to the Open Conference. In part two of getting things right with volleyball fans, ABS-CBN Sports announced that all games of the tournament will be aired on LIGA while select matches will be televised on S+A.

The coverage format goes like this:

  1. All games live on LIGA, ABS-CBN Sports YouTube channel and sports.abs-cbn.com/livestream/pvl
  2. Second game of Sunday doubleheader live on S+A.
  3. First game of Sunday doubleheader airs on a delayed basis after the live second game on S+A.
  4. Saturday doubleheaders air on a delayed basis every Monday at 2:00 p.m. on S+A.

The PVL Open Conference began Saturday with a doubleheader at the FilOil Flying V Centre. The opener meant that an MPBL game between the Bataan Risers and Cebu Sharks was not televised on S+A to give way to the live match between Banko Perlas Spikers and Iriga-Navy Oragons, a concession that was met with approval from volleyball fans.

The ongoing tournament will also feature Reinforced Conference champion Creamline Cool Smashers, Pocari Sweat Air Force, PetroGazz Angels, Tacloban Fighting Warays, Akari-Adamson Lady Falcons and Motolite-Ateneo Lady Eagles. Here is the entire tournament schedule.

About the only drawback here is that LIGA is only available on SkyCable and SkyDirect. But other than that, volleyball fans couldn’t get any happier.

Good luck to all the teams in the ongoing PVL Open Conference. And thanks to ABS-CBN Sports for giving the fans what they want.

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hits, music, Philippines, songs, television

In 100 Words: Coke Studio Moves to ABS-CBN

One network’s loss is another’s gain.

The second season of ‘Coke Studio Philippines’ premiered on ABS-CBN Sunday morning with IVOShanti as its first guests. Over the next several episodes, the show will feature performances from the following artists:

  • Quest
  • IV of Spades
  • Ben&Ben
  • December Avenue
  • Moira dela Torre
  • KZ Tandingan
  • Sam Concepcion
  • Khalil Ramos
  • Shanti Dope
  • AJ Rafael
  • Juan Miguel Severo
  • Patti Tiu
  • Kriesha Tiu

There will also be a mystery 14th artist and a holiday-themed episode to cap off the season.

‘Coke Studio Philippines’ initially aired a 10-episode series on TV5 last year. But the program moved to ABS-CBN this year due to TV5’s continuous emphasis into sports programming.

All episodes of ‘Coke Studio Philippines’ season 2 will be uploaded on its YouTube channel. Here is IVOShanti in the second season premiere.

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Philippines, Sports, television

UAAP and PVL Finals Forces MPBL Game to Air on LIGA

Here is some good and bad news for basketball and volleyball fans.

Game 2 of the Premier Volleyball League Collegiate Conference Finals will be aired live on ABS-CBN’s S+A at 6:30 p.m. tonight. At the moment, UP leads FEU by one game in this best-of-three encounter and can clinch the championship with a win.

Meanwhile, the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League will have a doubleheader scheduled in Bataan as well. However, only one game (Bataan vs. Valenzuela after the PVL Finals) will be aired live on S+A.

The reason: priorities over a particular sporting event. As the UAAP men’s basketball tournament is already underway, S+A considers this league as its first priority due to the UAAP’s immense popularity and appeal.

Today’s UAAP doubleheader will have UST vs. FEU followed by UP vs. Ateneo starting at 2:00 p.m. Which leads to the second priority in the PVL Finals.

ABS-CBN Sports and PVL organizer Sports Vision decided to schedule the finals on primetime so as not to conflict with UAAP basketball and to allow a wider audience to watch the game. Which then leads to the third priority in the MPBL.

Because of S+A’s aforementioned scheduling priorities not to mention that it is currently in the elimination stage, the MPBL had no choice but to air the first game in Bataan on sister channel LIGA. The game in question pits Pasig and San Juan.

This will mark the first time that the MPBL will be aired on LIGA. The good news, though, is that both games in Bataan will still be simulcast on the MPBL Facebook page.

Going back to the PVL, Game 2 of the Battle for Third between Adamson and UST will only air on LIGA and on the ABS-CBN Sports YouTube page as it will take place at around the same time as the UP-Ateneo UAAP basketball game. The match will be aired on a delayed basis this Friday on S+A after the NCAA basketball games.

Overall, S+A has a packed Wednesday lineup coming up. And it was good to see ABS-CBN resolving this scheduling dilemma in advance so as to benefit its legions of sports fans.

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drama, entertainment, Philippines, television

GMA Quietly Cancels My Guitar Princess

The writing is on the wall for ‘My Guitar Princess’.

No less than the show’s star Julie Anne San Jose confirmed the fate of ‘My Guitar Princess’ with a simple tweet. The series will officially wrap up this Friday, July 13, but it seems like GMA made no effort to hype up the finale.

‘My Guitar Princess’ first premiered on May 7, 2018 as a replacement to ‘Ang Forever Ko’y Ikaw’. From the moment it aired, however, it was clear that the series would still be no match to the late-morning juggernaut that is ABS-CBN’s ‘Sana Dalawa ang Puso’.

On average, ‘My Guitar Princess’ only scored 9% in the ratings, compared to the 15% that ‘Sana Dalawa ang Puso’ normally manages. In recent episodes, ‘My Guitar Princess’ earned a paltry 7%, a noticeable drop-off that forced GMA to throw in the towel.

It also did not help that viewers criticized Julie Anne San Jose’s acting chops in the series. Considering the lack of improvement on that part coupled with the poor ratings of ‘My Guitar Princess’, it will not be surprising to see GMA no longer giving Julie Anne any more acting roles and focusing on her recording career instead.

GMA was also unwilling to promote ‘My Guitar Princess’ via episode teasers. While GMA made a YouTube page for the show, only highlights and off-screen performances were uploaded.

But here is some good news. ‘My Guitar Princess’ will finish with 50 episodes, 12 more than predecessor ‘Ang Forever Ko’y Ikaw’.

The bad news: the series’ run is still short by GMA’s standards. And to make matters worse, ‘Sana Dalawa ang Puso’ is nearing 120 episodes by Friday, adding insult to injury for the Kapuso network.

Mercifully speaking, viewers who were cringed by ‘My Guitar Princess’ should be relieved that this series will officially come to a conclusion. Suffice to say, GMA made another series that was destined to fail, starring a so-called ‘multi-talented’ artist whose shortcomings as an actress are well-documented.

Perhaps Julie Anne San Jose should be better off working as a singer and retire from acting for good. After all, she is a great singer but not a good actor.

As for Gil Cuerva, the onus is on him to either improve as an actor or focus full-time as a model. Following two unsuccessful series, it is possible that acting is not on his cards.

In the end, GMA can only hope that ‘My Guitar Princess’ will have a graceful exit. The series may be bad, but at least they still tried.

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comedy, entertainment, humor, Philippines, television, variety show

Tawag ng Tanghalan 2 Finale Scores Big, But Not Big Enough

Talk about a complete turnaround.

Saturday’s ‘Tawag ng Tanghalan’ finale on ABS-CBN’s ‘It’s Showtime’ scored a whopping 31% in the Kantar ratings. On the other hand, GMA’s ‘Eat Bulaga’ earned a paltry 9.5% as it tried to keep up with Seen-A-Like, Sing-A-Like, Guhit Bulaga and other promotional gimmicks.

The finale of ‘Tawag ng Tanghalan’ saw 16-year-old Janine Berdin outlast five other aspiring singers to win P2 million, a house and lot and a management contract among other prizes. Her final piece saw her belt out a medley of hits from Bamboo, which immediately trended on social media and received millions of views on YouTube.

Despite the blowout win, ‘Tawag ng Tanghalan”s 31% rating was still a far cry from the 40.1% rating of ‘Eat Bulaga”s Sa Tamang Panahon in 2015. Nevertheless, ‘It’s Showtime’ should be more than satisfied with the finale’s ratings considering the segment’s consistently strong performance since its 2016 debut.

For now, though, ‘Tawag ng Tanghalan’ will not continue after a run of over two years (this includes two adult editions and a kids’ edition). Instead, ‘It’s Showtime’ will devote its time to a couple of other segments such as Miss Q&A and Mini Me.

But without ‘Tawag ng Tanghalan’ to hold the fort, it remains to be seen if ‘It’s Showtime’ will remain a winner despite the temporary hiatus of its most popular segment. That said, an imposing challenge awaits this noontime show as it tries to pick up the pieces post-‘Tawag ng Tanghalan’.

As for ‘Eat Bulaga’, there is nothing to worry about its poor ratings that day. Considering the show has no chance of pulling off the upset, the best that they did was to reveal a couple of old tricks to satisfy its loyal fanbase (being a show that is nearing 39 years old, it looks like they have nothing left to prove).

Oh, and one more thing: stop putting Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza together once and for all. With all due respect to AlDub Nation, they have outlived their usefulness as a love team (in fact, Maine already said that she and Alden were only friends and not in a relationship) and they should be better off thriving on their own.

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