When channel 9's telenovela marimar zoomed to the top of th ratings chart in june 1996, not a few people were hoping to see media giant abs-cbn down on its knees in defeat. Until then, abs-cbn had been invincible. Most of its shows on channel 2 dominated the airwaves and its lad program tv patrol consistently won the ratings war.
But the viewers' tastes appeared to be changing. They were switching channels and before long, the top-rating news program tv patrol was losing out to the Mexican-produced soap opera. The sultry marimar had unwittingly exposed the chink in abs-cbn's armor.
"we had to stop the bleeding," said abs-cbn executive vice-president and general manager Freddie Garcia of the rapid decline in tv patrol's viewership. “it was bleeding profusely and we couldn't afford that." The bleeding sent jitters throughout abs-cbn, the flagship of the multibillion-peso empire of the lopez family. It was an empire with interests in the key sectors of the nation's economy –from broadcasting to agriculture, energy to banking, telecommunications to infrastructure. Abs-cbn is the jewel in the lopez crown: owning the country’s largest network gives the family tremendous political clout that other wealthier tycoons do not have.
Since 1986, tv profits have funded the growth of the lopez conglomerate. In 1995, abs-cbn contributd 55% of the P1.6-billion net income of benpres, the lopez firm’s parent company. In one sense, what is at stake in the duelo contra maimar is far more than ratings, but the future of the lopez empire itself. Any perceived decline in ratings –and therefore profits- worries the company’s shareholders. The lopezes own a number of publicly listed companies, with abs-cbn the most profitable among them. A fall in ratings could mean a decline in stock prices as well. Says Ricardo “dong” puno, the network’s vic-president for news and current affairs: "di ka pupuwedeng lalabas na parang bumaba ang earnings mo. That really creates havoc in the stock market"
"we do the kinds of things that would maximize shareholder values, and the stock market has rewarded us appropriately for what we've done," says abs-cbn president eugenio Gabriel lopez III. But any more "marimars" could just jeopardize all that.
The lopez name has always been always equated with power and wealth, and the use of one to enhance the other. Senator blas ople, one of the most astute politicians around, likes to recall that between the 1950s and the 60s, the three most powerful men in the Philippines were the US ambassador, the lopez patriarch, and the president of the republic –in that order. That is, until Ferdinand marcos came and reversed the pecking order.
In the late 1960s to the early 1970s, the lopez had succeeded, thru a close alliance with marcos, in installing one of their own as vice-president. Thy had grown sa politically powerful, their economic presence so pervasive, that they were branded as oligarchs, an accusation that eventually caused the family’s downfall in marcos’ hands. After martial law was declared in 1972, the lopezes went to exile or prison, and nothing much was heard from them until 1986, when the entire clan returned to the Philippines to reclaim what was theirs. Since then, the lopezes have recovered with amazing speed, if not grace. Today they are accused of building a broadcast and telecommunications monopoly. They also own skycable, the biggest cable tv company in the country, created a new telephone firm bayantel, and acquired telegraph company radio communications Philippines inc. (RCPI) and the telecommunications firm international communications cooperation.
The tabloid news show tv patrol, is abs-cbn’s anchor program. It used to be aired from 6-7pm to serve as a “pre-program” for primetime. That meant tv patrol was the hook to draw the viewers to the 7-10pm shows, which are tv’s primetime hours. Says puno: “he who controls pre-programming of the primetime controls the primetime.” And consequently ad revenues.
Marimar which was broadcast from 6:30-7pm, threatened that control. But within a few weeks, abs-cbn launched a counter-attack that saw it drastically re-programming its primetime hours. It regained dominance by positioning mara clara against marimar. But the casualty was tv patrol, which lost its standing as the highest rating daily program.
Network execs still cannot comprehend the marimar episode. After all, abs-cbn spends millions of pesos on research, trying to predict changes in viewers’ tastes and preferences, and tracking down what the viewers are watching every single minute of the day. Being defeated by a cheap soap opera made them realize that there were things the lopez money couldn’t buy. Even puno could not tell what made marimar click. “I’m sure psychologists would try to divine what the hell this thing meant.” He speculates that this could either be because “peope are after escapism” now or that “they are tired of news.”
Columnist and ad executive Barbara Gonzales noted filipino’s preference for marimar is manifestation of their search for more imaginative ways of storytelling.
But the country’s largest network, what all this meant was that viewers may have finally given their verdict, not simply on the news but on ten years of abs-cbn news. Writes Gonzales: “by choosing marimar over tv patrol, people are saying they are tired of the gory tv tabloid coverage that unfortunately was cloned by every other network.” Before the revival of abs-cbn, the network leader was gma7. Its audience was the sector of the population that had money during the marcos years –the middle and upper classes. Its programs were mostly canned foreign shows, and its newscasts were in English. After the 1986 EDSA revolution, it took time before gma7 could emerge from the stifling atmosphere of the marcos era.
Former gma7 newscaster tina monzon-palma recalls that tv news then rarely reported police and crime stories, because they involved the martial law machinery. Nor did they cover the movies, because these did not normally fall into the definition of news during that time. “we were not oriented toward that kind of coverage. Our definition of the news during that time was the political, foreign news, business. W didn’t carry movie premieres, the launching of movie stars.”
The aquino government promised better times for the Filipinos, and that included the lopez family who were driven from power when martial law was imposed in 1972. Using their connections in malacanang and the presidential commission on good government, the lopezes cut a deal with the new regime, which allowed them to recover almost everything that the marcoss had seized from them 14 years earlier, including abs-cbn.
Rebuilding the broadcast empire meant jumpstarting from scratch. They got concessional bank loans using the existing 50-year franchise (which expires in 2019) as collateral. It also meant regrouping their forces and taking back old abs-cbn employees, including the network marketing whiz Freddie Garcia who used to be account executive and then sales manager with the pre-martial law abs-cbn. When the lopezes were displaced in 1972, he joined gma7.
By 1986, Garcia was back plotting the return of abs-cbn. He says they saw the potential of the masa under the new, improved economic conditions, and it was to this population sector that the station catered to. At the same time, the freedoms ushered in by the new democracy allowed abs-cbn to experiment with novel news formats. Garcia reveals that abs-cbn refined its own philosophy of the news using US news programs as a model. “when you talk about newscasts in the states, is there hard news? We’re talking about the car that turned turtle in the highway or a shooting in the neighborhood. Wala yung harnews about the economic policies of the government.”
Abs-cbn execs like to say that the network quenched the thirst for news and information that Filipinos were deprived of during the martial law years, a claim no one can dispute. But abs-cbn actually gave the viewers what they wanted, not what they needed.
Garcia recalls the origins of tv patrol: “we were thinking, the masa don’t buy newspapers, the broadsheets. If they ever buy, it’s the tabloid. At pasa-pasa pa yan sa bahay pati kapitbahay, until the next three days binabasa pa yan. So sabi naming why don’t we give them what the tabloids are giving them?” To spice things up, tv patrol anchors were allowed to comment and editorialize on the news. It was a strategy that worked.
The stations corporate profile boasts that in june 1986, abs-cbn ranked last among the five existing television stations. But by the first half of 1993, abs-cbn’s audience share had expanded 12-fold to a high 62%. Abs-cbn news was copied by all the other netoworks. Before long, tabloid journalism had become a must on primetime when gory, if not sexy; video had to go on the air. Tv cameras were now focusing their lenses on bloodied corpses sprawled on sidewalks; the choice sound bites were those rape victims narrating their stories in scandalous detail. At one point, channel 9 even thought up a show called blotter dedicated solely to police stories. Erstwhile gma7 also joined the pack, changing its early evening newscast from English to tagalong.
If abs-cbn introduced the public tabloid journalism on tv, it also redefine public affairs. In 1986, conditions were ripe for expanded news-oriented programs lumped together as “public affairs.” Initially, abs-cbn had pep talk, probe, and later, magandang gabi bayan and mel and jay. Says Garcia: “everybody wanted to speak out, be heard. Pagkakataon nang magsalita and feel free.”
But such mass-oriented programming thrust also meant that the station had to produce its own shows and pay big fees of local talents, rather than rely on cheap imports of foreign programs. Abs-cbn shows had to at least pay for themselves, and at best, capture the ratings and rake profits. This policy extended to the public affairs department.
Monzon-palma, who was gma7 vice-president for news and public affairs from 1986-1992, recalls that it was the need to pay these costs that forced abs-cbn to rethink the concept of public affairs: “they had high costs and they had to maintain overall leadership.” In 1986, channel 7 had a 10:30 club composed of serious talk shows like velez this week with jose mari velez, straight from the shoulder with louie beltran, and the long-running viewpoint hosted by puno. At that time, public affairs shows tackled heavy political and social issues, even if the programs did not rate. Earnings from the news programs subsidize them.
Today puno’s definition of public affairs is a far cry from what it traditionally was. “we answer the need for entertainment, for a certain amount of sensationalism,” he says. Puno, who sees himself as a “hard news” guy who has had to compromise to accommodate other considerations like ratings and profit, insists that there is nothing wrong with spicing up the news and public affairs programs by injecting the elements of entertainment –comedy, drama, showbiz intrigue, crime and the supernatural- to keep the viewers glued. These, he says, enabled abs-cbn to seize from gma7 the audience for the 10:30pm slots.
Not only did abs-cbn redefine “public affairs,” it also renamed it as “current affairs,” to signal that these programs do not necessarily have to have an impact on public life; they only had to be “current.”
That is why it is not surprising to see lawyer-turned-newspaper publisher teddy boy locsin’s show assignment, tackle topics like incest or child abuse by airing a re-enactment of the crime: on air, a father is shown molesting his daughter while the rest of the family sleep. Other times assignment devotes entire episodes to tales of the occult.
Puno himself, on his show dong puno live, tries to titillate the audience in every way possible. They want courtroom drama? He grills the killers of 14-year old olive ang and makes them confess to the murder, live via satellite, from their jail cell, they prefer showbiz? Puno uses his interviewing skills on actress ruffa Gutierrez and gives her precious airtime to thresh out her problems with her domineering mother, anabelle rama. These, he insists, are “not entirely useless.” A Harvard-educated lawyer, puno does not flinch when he says, “a lot of your life is sometimes governed by what actors and actresses do. You know, maybe in a tangential sort of way, they’re still out there doing a lot of advertising. Maybe they’re out there talking to people about moral standards which might be followed by your kid!”
Both puno and Garcia justify the use of entertainment to attract viewers by saying this builds up a loyal following that will be there when the big news stories break out. Garcia reasons: “if you want to be effective, you must rate. Just like a priest speaking in a pulpit. Kung wala siyang parishioners na nakikinig sa kanya maski anong ganda ng kanyang sermon, saying.” Puno’s argument: “when you have that audience, when you do a really hard news story then you’ve got that same audience, and that’s why the impact is larger.”
The abs-cbn mode; is the US infotainment –the merger of news and information with entertainment. But even there, critics have warned that infotainment distorts the viewer’s sense of value and proportion. The viewer begins to think that the marriage of megastar Sharon cuneta to francis pangilinan is as important as GATT or the peace agreement with moro rebels, or that finding a man who can peel coconut husks with his teeth in less than a minute is as significant as police brutality.
But criticisms like that don’t discourage abs-cbn. The network has come up with its infotainment showcase, balitang k, a glitzy 30-minute program born in the heat of battle between tv patrol and marimar. It is patterned after the US tabloid show hard copy and has its host korina sanchez exposing the flaws of the multibillion-peso pampanga magadike in the same tone that she uses to promote the heretofore untapped acting talents of starlet rosanna roces.
These shows go against the grain of public affairs programs, which are defined by the television code promulgated by the kapisanan ng mga brodkaster ng pilipinas (KBP) as those which are “geared towards building an enlightened citizenry thru the discussion and clarification of issues of national and international significance.” Indeed, the idea of social responsibility is deeply ingrained in the kbp’s code which says: “broadcast stations are encourage to provide a forum for articulating views, opinions and comments.”
Entertainment columnist nestor torre sees danger ahead. As he wrote recently in the Philippine daily inquirer, “in so-called news and public affairs programs, objective reporting and analysis have been subverted by the desire to ‘jazz up’ the news to make it more ‘exciting’, so more people will view those shows.” Torre continued: “many of our tv shows encourage tawdry thought process and habits, contradicting and even canceling out some of the gains students make in schools.”
But no matter what critics say about abs-cbn’s news and public affairs programs, these shows have now become the yardstick against which all other networks measure their shows. There is less tolerance among the networks for pure hard news and there is increasing pressure to make money.
That pressure is even greater on abs-cbn, which is the country’s only publicly listed media company. The network’s first consideration is not public service but the stockholders. All its programs must not earn enough money to please stockholders. And they have. The network has captured nearly half of the audience share, and cornered 45% of the billions in advertising money poured into the six tv stations. In 1995, abs-cbn earned P3.8 billion from advertising. And in the first half of 1996 alone, it reported a net profit of P676 million. Compare that to what gma7 made for the whole of 1995: P205 million.
Being the network leader also allows the station to dictate advertising rates. For instance, one of the most-watched shows on television is still abs-cbn’s home along da riles, starring comedy king dolphy who, during martial law, kept the channel 9 sitcom john en marsha running for years. Advertisers will do anything to get their commercials on home along da riles. At one point, they paid from P65,000 to P72,000 for 30 seconds of advertising time. The usual prime time rate on abs-cbn is only P40,000 to P50,000 for a 30-second spot.
But stock market analysts and investments researchers foresee a time when abs-cbn’s earnings will level off. Daily, there are only 18 hours of programming available, and only so much advertising time to sell. “sooner or later, the growth of abs-cbn will be constrained,” says investment analyst Christina barretto of all Asia capital. “so we expect to see some tapering off in the income of the company. But they have the foresight to know these things can happen.” Garcia concedes, “if you overload your programs with commercials, it will kill the program ultimately, so you have to look at other sources to get some revenues.”
Those other sources include the movie production outfit star cinema, a subsidiary of abs-cbn that is owned in part by regal film, and the recording company star records. The entry of mall mogul henry sy in the network’s board is expected to enhance the income-generating capacity of both ventures. But next potential moneymaking machine will be a new channel on the UHF band that will suck up all the advertisers abs-cbn turned away. The UHF channel will be programmed with the a-b audience in mind –the upper income bracket of the population who may find abs-cbn’s c-d shows uncouth for their tastes.
But while it may be understandable for abs-cbn aim profits, an obsession with money is harmful to broadcast journalism. The traditional concept was that tv news was “the conscience of a broadcast station,” and that the airwaves, being public property, are a public trust. Abs-cbn president gabby Lopez, however now says: “news is a product. It is one of the most profitable products in our company.”
There were some people in abs-cbn who tried to resist the profit motive, and wanted news and current affairs insulated from corporate pressures. Garcia recalls when network researchers first noted the slide in tv patrol’s viewership in February 1995. marimar was then still unheard of, but already, gma’s early evening soap opera villa Quintana was taking away patrol’s viewership in the 6:30-7 pm period. Abs-cbn strategist were already floating the idea of cutting tv patrol so they could pit their own soap mara clara, against Quintana. “the news people were up in arms,” Garcia recalls. “away lahat yan. They refused to budge and they said, we’re not entertainment, we’re not supposed to rate, we’re supposed to give news and information.”
To be number one also means being first in delivering the news. Abs-cbn’s tv crew has joined hands with radio station dzmm’s radyo patrol news teams, allowing both to cover more ground. The news department is also strengthening its provincial bureaus’ newsgathering capabilities. It’s all a matter of minimizing costs, says puno, who now doesn’t have to send reporters and cameramen out of manila to cover breaking out in the provinces.
The lopezes have also invested in new technology: they have five satellite news gathering (SNG) teams all over the country, with five more expected by the end of 1997. SNG enables provincial reporters to beam direct from the remotest corners of the country to the abs-cbn studio in Quezon City in a matter of minutes. This nationwide backbone of news-gatherers has made abs-cbn’s information machine even more formidable than that of the government’s. as lopez himself points out, “the government does not have the same infrastructure that we have. In many cases, we get the news even before people in the government find out what’s going on.”
It is the kind of power the lopezes are accustomed to. But it is also the kind that generates controversy. Lopez himself admits that this power creates tensions between his company and the government. “managing and being successful in the broadcast industry certainly requires sensitive political antennae,” he says. People turn to abs-cbn for information, entertainment, and to certain extent, for redress for government’s shortcomings. Unfortunately, the lopezes use that power less “in the service of the Filipino” as their station id trumpets, but more for profit.
HOW THE EMPIRE WAS WON BACK
On april 17, 1986, just six weeks after the fall of marcos, the venerable former senator Lorenzo tanada, in his capacity as counsel for the lopez family, paid a call on president corazon aquino. His mission: to ask that the government return the tv and radio stations seized from the lopezes during martial law.
No one turns down Lorenzo tanada –and the lopezes knew that. Six months later, on October 24, abs-cbn resumed broadcasting.
That was a heady time. Democracy had just been restored, the media had been unmuzzled and everything seemed possible –even the return of the lopezes to their former glory. In a series of negotiations with various officials, eugenio “geny” lopez jr. and his brothers cleverly used their cachet as oppositionists persecuted by the marcos regime and the influence of their friends in the new government to quickly get back the remnants of their empire: abs-cbn, the manila chronicle, meralco, a chunk of PCIBank.
With unerring political savvy, the family moved faster than all others who had been dispossessed by martial law. In the case of abs-cbn, geny lopez and his cousin agustin almeda lopez met with malacanang officials in june 1986. They agreed that the government would return channel 2 to the lopezes, but would retain channel 4. Both networks had been taken over by marcos crony Roberto benedicto’s bohol broadcasting corp. (BBC) in 1973.
In july 1986, the presidential commission on good government (PCGG) formally turned over channel 2 and two radio stations to the lopezes. It helped that the commission was headed by anti-marcos oppositionists who were exiled in the US at the same time as the lopezes. “I helped them get back abs-cbn,” admits a pcgg commissioner, because at that time he was for the masses, the people. They promised us they will only operate one tv station and one radio station, but look at them now.”
The lopez family agreed to lease channel 2 facilities for some P21 million a year. But when the time came to pay, they refused, at first saying that the pcgg had agreed of deferral of payments. Later, with tanada again as their lawyer, abs-cbn sued benedicto’s BBC, demanding payment for use of channel 2 facilities and equipment from 1973-1979.
What ensued was a flurry of court cases which allowed abs-cbn free use of the disputed facilities while the suits were being threshed out. An arbitration committee to sort things out was formed in late 1987. in the end, thanks to the persuasive powers of tanada and the sympathy of aquino advisers joker arroyo and teodoro locsin jr. with the lopezes, the odds were in the family’s favor. President aquino herself empathized with the lopezes’ experience of dispossession and exile, which mirrored her own. Before she left malacanang, she signed a document that transferred channel 2 and two radio stations to the lopezes –for free.
source:
From Loren to Marimar
The Philippine media in the 90s
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
(first published in i magazine)
