TitoSen and Robin: the end of an era

The decline of Free TV means the demise of the Star-Politico

So this video’s gone viral, and like I said in my column, it’s a problem of translation. But it points to something else, which is what both these senators represent, which is the path celebrity opens up to national office. It seems to me it’s entirely possible that Robin Padilla, elected in 2022, may mark the end of one particular road celebrities took to national office: the moves; while the ongoing woes of former Senate President Vicente Sotto III, points to another, parallel road possibly petering out, too: that created by TV. Which is not to say there won’t be TV or film celebrities, but will they ever have the massive, national, audiences, created by the TV, movies, and even mass media, of the past? So long as the celebrities who rose to prominence in the heyday of the old mass media and mass entertainment were in their prime, and presiding over mobilized fans, they could return, over and over again, to elected office regardless of term limits (Sotto served 24 years in the Senate, on par with the premartial law and even prewar senate bigwigs).

But the particular alchemy that created their candidacies hardly seems capable of reproduction moving forward. And that’s the topic of this week’s column.

This week’s The Long View

THE LONG VIEW

The last dodos

By: Manuel L. Quezon III - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:35 AM May 31, 2023

The question was this: Could Sen. Robin Padilla be coaxed by Sen. JV Ejercito, then presiding over the Senate, to make a motion on the floor? At stake was National Hijab Day, during which, one observer tweeted, Senators Padilla and Joel Villanueva laughed as breastfeeding and the customs of Muslims and indigenous peoples were being discussed. Millions by now saw how it unfolded and how the motion wasn’t even lost but simply failed, because of translation. To be precise, Padilla, speaking in Filipino, was left to grope for the right term because Ejercito, presiding in English, was unable to supply or even explain it.

The founders of our independent republic, when they envisioned a nationally elected Senate, foresaw two dangers inherent to a body elected in this manner: celebrity and money. Both would give undue advantage to the unscrupulous or the unprepared, who would be freed of the moderating influence of a party, which alone could impose otherwise optional standards such as geographic balance and seniority in the selection of candidates. The antidote proposed was the system of bloc voting, in which a vote for a party would credit all that party’s candidates with a vote. It is no coincidence that shortly after bloc voting was abolished as a supposedly democracy-fostering reform, the first celebrity candidate was elected to the Senate, while veteran senators embarked on party zigzagging by running as “guest candidates.” Fame, whether at the box office or in media itself, could be a ticket to electoral success, just as a private fortune that didn’t need sharing with a party could do the same.

But that era may be coming to an end, and it may be bookmarked by the election of Rogelio de la Rosa, matinee idol, to the Senate in 1957 and that of Robin Padilla in 2022. Consider Vicente Sotto III. There was something symbolic about his retiring from the Senate being followed by the almost-heretical possibility that he, his brother Vic, and pal Joey, might be ousted from “Eat Bulaga!” It’s a story that’s been on-again, off-again, in the entertainment press, one that has an intriguing cast that includes the notorious ex-congressman and ex-felon, Romeo Jalosjos, his son, and allegations that Tito, Vic, and Joey have lost their drawing (and earning) power, making them expendable. For example, in April and May 2022, “Eat Bulaga!” dropped to record lows in timeslot ratings (4 percent and 3.8 percent), a far cry from its heyday during AlDub days when viewership reached up to 50 percent.

There is the question of what control, if any, the trio has over the future of the show since it is owned by a production company, including the possibility the show could remain with its owners while the trio could go to another network, such as Channel 5, which found its ambitions to replace ABS-CBN foiled by Congress warning Manuel V. Pangilinan of dire (investigative, nonrenewal of other franchises) consequences if an announced ABS-CBN and TV5 merger had proceeded last year. In a startling coincidence, even as Pangilinan was being dissuaded from a merger with the Lopezes, the Romualdezes had let it be known they were keenly interested in taking over the ex-Lopez frequencies—and media assets. Just last week, almost a year when the idea was originally floated, it came to pass: the Lopezes announced they were pulling the plug on DZMM’s “Teleradyo” while entering into a joint venture with the Romualdezes who would take over the AM station’s old frequency.

Before the pandemic, television reigned supreme. It still does, but it’s a throne built on quicksand. Kantar data cited by the Asia Video Industry Association in 2021 reported peak viewership at about 45 percent at 8 p.m. in 2017; by 2020, it had gone down to 35 percent: that 10 percentage points reflecting a lost audience of millions. Kantar data commissioned by the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas had TV viewership, which had been at 94 percent in 2019, falling to 89 percent in 2022; again, a loss of millions. The same sources reported online content consumption growing from 59 percent to 76 percent in the same period. As for TV news, Yvonne Chua’s annual Reuters Institute summary had its reach decline from 66 percent in 2020 to 60 percent in 2022.

It’s a race to the bottom for the old tri-media print, radio, and television, as each ceases to be mass media. Friends of the previous administration feasted on the carcass of ABS-CBN but found it tough to turn the frequencies government awarded to them, into audiences, Advanced Media Broadcasting System being the most notable failure in this regard. The political consequence of all this, then, is by what means can the fame necessary for national election be achieved when no single media can create sustained fame? To be sure, celebrities are being made every day—but will they be the kind that can turn their fame into political capital? There can never be a TitoSen again. Or even a Robinhood. Which might provide the political impetus to abolish or regionalize the Senate as an impossible dream for future politicians.

I. Eat Bulaga Imperiled

My column this week, as it turned out, was kind of clairvoyant. Because just a couple of hours after it came out, this came to pass:

So that’s it: the new management, they said, forbade them from broadcasting live. So they were parting ways with their blocktime producer, TAPE Inc.

Here is the story that got me thinking, some weeks ago.

Tito Vice and Joey courtesy of Bandera

I was first intrigued by a recent article, Tito Sotto reveals TAPE execs want to 'reinvent' Eat Bulaga! over financial losses, asked co-hosts to resign:

In a podcast released Tusday evening (April 25), Sotto revealed that the rumors regarding rebranding came about because higher-ups believed they were losing profits and that many of his co-hosts were asked to resign from the 44-year old show.

Speaking with entertainment reporter Nelson Canlas on his podcast Updated With Nelson Canlas, Tito explained that while Tuviera is still at TAPE Inc., its organizational structure has been changed…

Earlier online reports alleged that former congressman Romy Jalosjos was seeking to take control of Television and Production Exponents (TAPE) Inc. which produces Eat Bulaga! from his business partner Tony Tuviera and "rebrand" the show by kicking out the three pioneer hosts, Tito, Vic, and Joey de Leon.

Jalosjos

A more recent article, updated the oings-on:

This year came with unexpected and, apparently, unwelcome changes.

This is when Romy Jalosjos began showing who is boss. As TAPE majority owner, he announced changes in administration: Mr. T is out; everyone has been asked to resign and get rehired under a lower pay scheme, although that instruction is now on hold. Next he dropped ideas for production: he wants new blood and names the hosts he wants taken out; he plans to bring in a child from Zamboanga del Norte, the Jalosjos base, to turn into the next child star; he wants the show's director and its chief writer removed from there.

The TVJ, also the glue that keeps the show together, were upset, but kept their silence. They proposed a compromise: Everyone will take a 10 percent cut in pay until December this year, after which the company can assess its financial standing, and they talk again. TAPE agreed.

Everyone returned to an uneasy peace. It was a peace broken, say the TVJ, when Bullet Jalosjos—Romy's younger son, TAPE's Chief Finance Officer, and also mayor of Dapitan City, Zamboanga del Norte—took to the media. His statements, coupled with others leaking from the Jalosjos camp, have sent the TVJ ballistic.

The ongoing drama over Eat Bulaga! (interesting: it has a franchise in Indonesia) has two interesting aspects to it.

1st: The decline, it seems, in free TV’s audience and also, the waning drawing power of old, established brands.

2nd: Another interesting aspect is that, since politics and entertainment are joined at the hip, the waning drawing power of existing dominant channels of entertainment, will have an effect on politics.

II. The decline of free TV

The current statistics are digested in Digital 2023: The Philippines, in Datareportal.

Chart from Philippines in View 2021 Executive Summary by Asia Video Industry Association

Putting the chart above in context, from the report in which it was published:

More Filipinos are turning to the internet, and alongside traditional modes of viewing, almost all of them are accessing online video from mobile devices wherever they want and whenever they want. That surge in demand has resulted in a digital video ad spend year on year growth of 4.8% and a total digital advertising spend in the Philippines being valued at US$558 million in 2020, despite total ad spend shrinking slightly by 4% year on year.

The local TV industry has gone through a rollercoaster in comparison. Kantar Group research showed that total TV viewership (traditional or free-to-air (FTA) TV and pay TV or cable and satellite) saw a significant drop between 2019 and 2020, with afternoon and evening dayparts seeing the biggest change (Figure 1). Much of this could be attributed to a slew of devastating incidents that captured the attention of Filipinos, including the forced shutdown of Philippine TV giant ABS-CBN and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that put the country into a nationwide lockdown.

In connection with this, Statista’s Streaming in the Philippines - statistics & facts tells us,

2020 saw a boom in streaming in the Philippines as movie theaters and live cinema were largely shut down due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In a country with the longest imposed lockdown, most Filipinos heavily relied on in-home entertainment to cope with cabin fever. For Filipino internet users, streaming videos and music were among their leading online activities. In fact, as of April 2022, over 98 percent of Filipino internet users aged between 16 and 64 used a video streaming subscription service. Such media service platforms were increasingly popular due to their affordable and accessible content, thus transforming the way most internet users consume digital content. Apart from video streaming, music and game streaming have also been taking traction in recent years.

Statista’s Number of users of music streaming in the Philippines 2017-2027 has this interesting data:

The number of users in the music streaming segment of the digital media market in the Philippines was forecast to continuously increase between 2023 and 2027 by in total 1.5 million users (+29.01 percent). According to this forecast in 2027, the user number will have increased for the fourth consecutive year to 6.63 million users. Notably, the number of users of the music streaming segment of the digital media market was continuously increasing over the past years.

Top Streaming Services by Subscribers in the Philippines has slender numbers: HboMax with 250k, iFlix with 2M, Vius with 1.5M but no Philippine numbers for Netflix or Amazon Prime, for example. But back in 2021 a news item claimed, “Based on a global survey conducted by Finder.com, 62% of Filipino adults have at least one streaming service, which is above the global average of 56%.”

Rappler points to Meltwater’s 2023 Global Digital Report and extracts the following:

III. Political repercussions of the decline of Free TV

Two years ago, I took a look at media consumption. My presentation deck’s here: Ped Xing13 Keynote Presentation: What will be the role of the media in the upcoming 2022 elections?

An interesting snippet from a year ago (April 2, 2022): ‘Eat Bulaga’ sinks to a record low of 4% in TV rating. A month later, Noontime viewership continues to plunge as the TV rating of ‘Eat Bulaga’ dips to a new historic low:

Primetime viewership has been significantly chipped, with the current number one drama barely making it past a 15% people rating, when we’re used to seeing the number one hitting above 20%. What makes them even more surprising, is the fact that ABS-CBN, which used to attract the biggest chunk of local television viewership before, has been practically erased from the face of the free TV competition. Of course, many of its programs have already made a successful free TV comeback through ABS-CBN’s various block time deals with other TV networks, but the drop in overall TV viewership remains staggering.

It is easier to understand how much audience traditional television has lost when you realize that even after losing a strong rival, Eat Bulaga, GMA Network’s daily noontime show, continues to sink in viewership. It has plunged to a historic low of 3.8%, according to AGB Nielsen’s National Urban TV Measurement (NUTAM) data on May 18, Wednesday. It marks the first time the show’s people rating went below 4%.

To realize how starkly low Eat Bulaga’s rating is, let’s look at its pre-pandemic and pre-ABS-CBN shutdown numbers. According to AGB Nielsen, the show rated 7.1% on February 14. Its main competition back then, was ABS-CBN’s It’s Showtime, with a 5.1% people rating. Even against It’s Showtime’s previous TV rating, Eat Bulaga’s current rating now can not compete. The show lost nearly half of its audience when ABS-CBN’s free TV departure even allowed it to attract an even bigger viewership.

An interesting snapshot of a month’s ratings from July, 2022. Back then, the story was, ‘Tropang LOL’ overtakes ‘It’s Showtime’ in TV ratings, while ‘Eat Bulaga’s lead shrinks. And all of the above is in the context of Record-breaking TV ratings of Eat Bulaga! during the AlDub craze, a phenomenon, mind you, that had a deep impact on political communications, too.

A Bilyonaryo Tweet says GMA Network has seen its income plunge 72 percent. It’s been a long time coming. From an ABS-CBNNews report in 2010:

TV’s reach as a medium went down from 95% in 2008 to 92% last year. These percentages represent responses of Nielsen interviewees during these periods. In a study covering the last three quarters, TV viewership was at 91%.

This 2021 summary from Asia Video Industry Association:

Yet, overall TV viewership has not recovered since. By the end of the year, viewership dropped to almost one hour less compared to the beginning of the government’s “enhanced community quarantine” (ECQ), recovering only slightly with the entry of FTA blocktime broadcast network A2Z — the joint venture of ABS-CBN and ZOE Broadcasting Network, Inc. — in October. Likewise, TV reach declined quarter on quarter until it saw a significant bounce back in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Yvonne Chua, PCIJ veteran, writing for Reuters Institute,

2021:

By February this year, at the time the Digital News Report survey was conducted, TV usage had slid to 61% (–5pp) with an even bigger decline in print consumption to 16% (–6pp). The decline in TV viewing may have been partly influenced by the closure of ABS-CBN’s free-to-air stations after the House of Representatives refused to renew its franchise to operate…Besides benefiting from the airtime advertising resulting from ABS-CBN’s closure, GMA’s online and digital ad sales grew 36%. It has launched a DTT receiver, GMA Affordabox, and mobile dongle, GMA Now.

2022:

Across the whole population, television remains the most popular medium in the Philippines, but this year’s Digital News Report confirmed a steady growth of online news consumption including heavy news use on a range of social platforms. Facebook remains the most widely used (73% for news weekly) but the biggest leap comes from TikTok, used by mere 2% for news in 2020 and now by 15%….

Contrast the above with Telecom, pay-TV service revenue in Philippines to increase at 4% CAGR during 2021-2026, forecasts GlobalData.

IV. Who can create celebrities for politics?

A companion piece brings up the nexus between politics and entertainment, in as lurid a package as possible: Meet Eat Bulaga! owner Romeo Jalosjos: The power that can shake up Philippine TV

Until 2013, Romeo Jalosjos ruled with baronial impunity, even from jail. Things have been up and down for his clan politically since then. Carolyn Arguillas summarized their present position as follows: Mindanao 2022 to 2025:  fat and obese dynasties rule makes for interesting reading, see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and her earlier report, Duterte out, Duterte in; still ‘all in the family’ in Mindanao, all in MindaNews.

Suffice it to say the local barons can do what they please, until or unless they cross a line which makes the national government take notice and do damage control. As for media, what the local barons need is local media, which accounts for the proliferation of radio stations and perhaps, also accounts for the continued survival of the regional press.

The importance of national media is, arguably, negligible. But national media is crucial to obtain, expand, and retain, national exposure and the standing needed to be a viable candidate for national office.