TV5 EATS REVENUE SHARES OF ABS-CBN AND GMA NETWORK

The emergence of TV5 as a strong third player is already sending shock waves to industry leaders GMA-7 and ABS-CBN  as the latter's shares in the advertising market continuously shrink. One solid proof are the latest financial disclosures of both GMA and ABS-CBN noting a significant drop in advertising revenues since 2011.

 Manuel V. Pangilinan-led television network Associated Broadcasting Corp. (ABC), operator of TV5, saw its market share grow substantially in 2011, establishing itself as a serious player in the broadcast sector.


From a negligible footprint of 2.3 percent in 2010, TV5 said it ended 2011 with an 18-percent share in television industry advertising revenues for Metro Manila.

For nationwide rankings, TV5 grew its share to 15.6 percent from 2.7 percent of industry revenues.

GMA-7 responded to this dilemma by forging an early booking scheme for its large advertisers in able to secure its share.   In this way it is able to protect itself from the growing competition in the advertising industry.

ABS-CBN for its part reacted by further diversifying its portfolio and going away from its dependence on advertising revenues. The company strengthened its consumer sales business by producing more films, expanding its broadband business, consolidating its publishing outfits and investing more on growing its Pay TV/ Cable business.  

For the first quarter of the year alone ABS-CBN Productions Inc. produced five films, three of which surpassed the P100-M mark in the local box office. ABS-CBN Publishing also recently announced it will absorb Culinary Publications, Inc. to solidify its Print and Publishing Business.  It's Cable TV subsidiary Sky Cable also announced it will acquire rival Destiny Cable and its broadband business to expand its cable business and prepare for the Digital shift which is also seen as another revenue opportunity.

TV5 is a unit of MediaQuest Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of the PLDT employee Beneficial Trust Fund.

Earlier this month, PLDT announced that it would invest P6 billion in MediaQuest, through the purchase of the latter’s Philippine Depository Receipts—a form of security that carries no voting rights.

In a statement on Monday, officials said the investment in MediaQuest, which will be used for the expansion of TV5 and affiliate satellite TV provider Cignal, would help transform the PLDT group from a telecommunications company into a multimedia conglomerate.

Cignal, for its part, is the country’s largest direct-to-home satellite TV provider with over 250,000 subscribers.

TV NETWORK WAR ORIGINAL