

FTT Year 2013 in Review: TV5


The Positives




The Negatives







Amy Perez Returning to ABS-CBN?; Other Notes






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In 100 Words: Face to Face Concludes



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Amy Perez Out of TV5







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What If TV5’s Untold Stories Remained on the Air?

Had TV5’s ‘Untold Stories’ remained on the air, it would have been a clear three-way ratings race between ‘Maalaala Mo Kaya’, ‘Magpakailanman’, and this program.

Every Saturday night we watch the story of a particular individual and their struggles to cope up with their lives on ABS-CBN’sMaalaala Mo Kaya‘ and GMA’sMagpakailanman‘. The two programs have been rivals for several years now and ratings leadership in the primetime slot have gone back and forth between them. However, there was one program that would have rivaled the success of MMK and ‘Magpakailanman’, had it continued to air.

Untold Stories Mula sa Face to Face‘, or ‘Untold Stories’ in short, once aired on TV5 every Saturday nights. The program’s premise is to retell a particular conflict that aired on the tabloid talk show ‘Face to Face’, with hidden details of the conflict revealed along the way. The show began to air in 2010, but was pulled midway in 2012, just as GMA was planning to revive ‘Magpakailanman’.

Just imagine a three-way rivalry between the three programs had ‘Untold Stories’ remained on the air. It would have given the television audience an option to choose between three aspects of drama anthology: the confrontational in ‘Untold Stories’, the inspiring in ‘Magpakailanman’, and the anecdotal in ‘MMK’. However, for the most part ‘Untold Stories’ suffered from several shortcomings, hence its short television run.

Audiences never liked the presentation style of ‘Untold Stories’ host Amy Perez, whose approach seems more relative to hosting a documentary or a public affairs program, in contrast to the apparent calm and slow-it-down style of Mel Tiangco and Charo Santos-Concio. ‘Untold Stories’ would have served its purpose if the host came from the news or executive department, namely News5 head Luchi Cruz-Valdes, and not a showbiz personality like Amy Perez.

The use of footage from ‘Face to Face’ likewise did not serve ‘Untold Stories’ well. Had TV5 decided to let the actors do the acting instead of splicing footage from ‘Face to Face’, it would have gained a sizable audience. In addition, the use of violence was more rampant on the program than on its rivals, making it harmful and unhealthy for younger children.

So what if TV5 never cancelled ‘Untold Stories’ and kept it on the air? Would the viewers remain interested on the violence and extensive confrontation scenes? Absolutely not. Would a three-way race on Saturday nights become a reality? I don’t think so. The way I see it, even if they were to continue running the program, it would fall way behind its competitors by a wide margin, because the high amount of violence in the program is just enough to turn away advertisers and audiences. For now TV5 shied away from creating drama anthologies to focus on gag shows, game shows and even talk and variety shows on weekends, an approach they dubbed ‘Weekend Do It Better’.

With the way TV5’s weekend lineup is performing, it is unclear whether the drama anthology will return to the Kapatid network. Perhaps in the near future, but not now in the midst of a philosophical shift. ‘Untold Stories’ may be history, but it will not be forgotten.

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Leila de Lima’s Announcement and Subsequent TV Coverage

It only took around 45 minutes, but Department of Justice secretary Leila de Lima swiftly announced the filing of plunder, malversation of public funds, bribery, and graft and corruption charges against Pork Barrel mastermind Janet Napoles, senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, and 34 others. Seconds after the charges were filed, media reporters rush in to grab documents of the said cases.

Even before the announcement was made, Senator Enrile had been rushed to the hospital after complaining of difficulty in urinating. It was also reported that once the charges against him were announced, he immediately proclaimed his innocence. Let’s face it, Enrile is an ailing 89-year old man, and accusing him of plunder at his advanced age is not what I want to see. The accusations against him would only hasten his already failing health, and may lead to his eventual death.

Senator Estrada had been accused of plunder before, when he and his father, former President and Manila mayor Joseph Estrada, were both charged relating to the Jose Velarde scandal twelve years earlier. Senator Revilla had also been involved in prior legal cases, both during his acting and ongoing political career. While both denied the accusations, Senator Estrada has said he is prepared to face the charges, while Senator Revilla said that the people should not judge him and his co-accusers this early in their ordeal.

In terms of television coverage, all of the major networks aired the live press conference of de Lima’s announcement. While GMA News TV, DZMM Teleradyo and the ABS-CBN News Channel were able to carry the live press conference, TV5 was forced to carry the announcement as sister station AksyonTV carried the live NCAA games. TV5’s live coverage of the announcement affected their programming; their ‘Sine Ko Singko’ program was delayed for several minutes, while another rerun of ‘Face to Face’ significantly cut the airtime allotted for the public service program ‘T3: Reload’. The Tulfo brothers’ program was reduced to 10 minutes rather than the standard 30, and time constraints prevented any complainants from voicing some of their complaints on national TV. If I were News5 head Luchi Cruz-Valdes, I would tell TV5 president Noel Lorenzana to stop airing reruns of ‘Face to Face’ and instead replace it with any of News5’s public affairs programs, or the live simulcast of Radyo5 92.3 News FM‘s ‘Cristy FerMinute’, because it is becoming too annoying.

Meanwhile, the trial for the plunder case against Napoles and 37 other co-conspirators will be announced soon, and is expected to be carried live by all of the major networks.