ABS-CBN DENIES IT HAS INTEREST IN ACQUIRING IBC 13 OR RPN 9!

ABS-CBN Corp., the largest broadcasting company in the Philippines, said it is not interested in bidding for two state-owned television stations, which the government may put on the auction block soon.

The government wanted to privatize RPN 9 and IBC 13 to boost the country’s coffers. The Privatization Management Office is currently working out the terms for the sale of these networks.San Miguel Corp. is among the companies that expressed interest in bidding for the government stations while MediaQuest Holdings Inc., a unit of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., which owns TV 5, already has an existing block time deal with IBC 13.

ABS-CBN chairman Eugenio Lopez III said the company would not bid for the two government stations, even as rival GMA Network Inc. was pursuing merger talks with Mediaquest which owns TV 5, the third-largest network.

MediaQuest chairman Manuel Pangilinan earlier said he expected the negotiations with GMA Network to be completed before the end of the year. Pangilinan’s MediaQuest owns a controlling stake in Associated Broadcasting Corp., which operates TV 5.

Pangilinan’s group will end up owning two of the top three TV stations in the country, once negotiations push through.

Pangilinan said the acquisition of GMA Network would also be done through MediaQuest, which is the media unit of the employee retirement fund of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.

ABS-CBN also owns several free TV and cable channels such as Channel 2, Studio 23, ANC Channel and Lifestyle channel.

ABS-CBN reported a net income of P306 million in the first quarter, which was 69 percent lower than the P976-million profit it posted in the same period last year.

The profit, minus non-recurring income, would have been 1 percent higher than last year’s P302 million.

ABS-CBN said consolidated revenues from advertising and consumer sales grew by 8 percent to P7.1 billion. The media company expects a full-year net income of P1.3 billion in 2012.

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