Our TV ratings in the Philippines is comedic in a big way. We have two big multinational rating agencies proclaiming completely different results. On one side, we have AGB Nielsen used by GMA, TV5, CNN Philippines, Net 25, etc while Kantar has Abs-Cbn on the other side. I often laughed at the schizophrenic reporting I read on some sites. One post now could be declaring that Abs-Cbn shows were leading, according to Kantar, while the next post would proclaim GMA dominating, according to Nielsen. The weird situation satisfies the caprice & need of everybody- but still, one wonders, what is the true picture?
Even while I was championing the Big 3 young loveteams of Abs-Cbn, I was always baffled by the station being watched in Manila: be it in a dentist office, a canteen, a government office, etc., it was always turned on on GMA. I mentioned before, even my mother's TV was stuck on GMA. I myself don't watch TV very much, I am mostly connected to the web. Well, except local news.
I mostly thought low of GMA because of how it allows itself to be made inferior by Korean shows (I actually like GMANEWS TV, mostly it had no political agenda like it should be, but I was often disgusted by the ShopTV & Korean shows that clutter what could be the country's finest news TV; it could be the most credible news station around, with interesting travel & food shows, without the unrelated clutter).
Lately, in my early evening runs, running 7 kilometers through 2 subdivisions, I was struck by the sound of TV along the way. Again, GMA. I turn around in a public market where I drink buko & eat some fruits for electrolytes, rest awhile & I would see a TV turned on. Encantadia. Alyas Robin Hood. I lambasted GMA before in previous posts because of its unnecessary subservience to Korean delusions, but if you have noticed, I couldn't help lately but feature more & more GMA stars. Its popularity gnawed at me. But somehow, there was a disconnect between the popularity of its shows and the relatively lackluster radiance of its stars. To be sure, the station have great-looking stars but somehow, their visibility in people's screens were not translated into a more radiant stardom. Instead of cluttering its screen with the Korean shows, it could have copied the propaganda methods of the Koreans instead, and presto, it could have had bigger stars because they were easier to sell with their superior looks compared to the plain-looking Koreans.
Encantadia & Alyas Robin Hood are a watershed for GMA. It is resurgent & apparently the ripples have unnerved the competition. Abs-Cbn's strategy has always been to clear its competitor's swamp: recruit its stars, now it has been reduced to competing for the superfluous Korean shows. Which had low ratings mostly so you wonder why they even figure now in the game; they might just be resurrected because they suddenly became the bone of contention so would have to be publicized heavily to become viable.
I expected more on Abs-Cbn because it was supposed to be bigger. I could cut GMA more slack because it was supposed to be weaker. But both forgot they were big powers in many areas of the world because of the teleserye.
For all the low self-regard of the Filipinos in their home grounds, they figure high in international waters. The teleserye is one of the biggest telenovela products in the world, competing in many areas of the world...& wonder of wonders, it is bigger than the Korean drama series in all the areas where they meet head on. How could they have been fighting over a product whose claim to ratings just came from propaganda in the local arena? Now they just might be forced to participate in the propaganda so they can sell their folly. And make bigger their competition.
They forgot they are helping sell their competition which has been sabotaging them as they tried to make headway into the world (read Tales of SABOTAGE at the sidebar). Will it stop sabotaging them considering it doesn't have their looks (despite their propaganda that they are the most beautiful Asian "according to Asian themselves", the looks are the biggest reason why the Koreans were the perennial bottom-dwellers in the Peruvian & other non-Mongoloid charts for a decade now) and their successes despite the lack of a propaganda machine?
Pinoys lack appreciation of their strengths. It appears we are still at the easily impressionable hillbilly stage, and seeing our biggest broadcast stations acting like uto-utos from the boondocks is really baffling...
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