“Keeping it good.”
That is the promise that GTV continues to tell its viewers day in and out. But really, did they actually do a good job keeping that pledge alive? That’s the question that we’ll try to decipher today.
Pre-GTV
In late 2020, then-GMA News TV made a drastic channel drift that did not only drive its programming grid further from its original mission, but had also made it downright unreliable as a ‘news’ station on free TV at certain times.
Around the same period, GMA successfully bagged the rights to cover the Philippines’ National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), after its previous coveror — ABS-CBN Sports — was abolished as a result of its parent firm’s free-to-air shutdown in May 2020. With GMA’s fully-loaded schedule, GMA News TV was assigned to be the primary coveror of the NCAA for the Kapuso network.
GNTV, by January 2021, had become much more tied to entertainment, among other things. It launched its first daily primetime series via The Lost Recipe and its weekend grid becoming more akin to what viewers would likely expect to see from its predecessor QTV. By February of the same year, the management had finally decided to let go of the brand entirely — locally (GMA News TV continues to operate as an international ‘news’ channel up to this day). That announcement made it clear that GNTV’s last few months on-air was actually a transition towards its next incarnation.
Enter GTV, which stands for Good TV. Yep, taking the place of what was once QTV and GNTV is another general interest channel from the Gozon-owned media empire. This rebranding has also allowed them to finally sort out the confused identity of GMA News TV, even prior to the late 2020 ‘transition’ period.
However, even if they were able to solve that problem, what really happened next for the secondary Kapuso channel?
But first, the things that they did right.
In a television ratings survey in end 2021 conducted by AGB Nielsen, GTV was able to trump several other players in the free TV field. Thanks to the wide reach of it and parent GMA, coupled with the absence of a formidable rival, GTV was able to take the ‘second most-viewed channel’ spot from TV5 in the last part of 2021.
That also went hand-in-hand with the station’s expansive reach across the archipelago on both analog and digital terrestrial television systems throughout the year.
Programming-wise, there was an obvious effort to distinguish GTV from its sister GMA. For one, it is intended to be focused on younger-skewing programs, while attracting the general public. That alone is different even from its past incarnations, as QTV appealed to upper-class women and GNTV attracting the older audience spectrum, thanks to its news and public affairs programming. The channel also experimented in various formats, which some standouts proving to be successful — case in point: Dapat Alam Mo!, which has been granted a temporary extension via a simulcast on the flagship channel.
In spite of all those upsides, as it is in real life, there are and would always be the downsides.
The not-so-good things
Just a month into its life, GTV was tapped to simulcast programs from GMA-7. To be clear, it has already hooked-up with GMA as GMA News TV via the simulcast of 24 Oras. The thing is, they have increased the volume of shows that are placed under such practice.
In March 2021, GTV aired All-Out Sundays, the Sunday noontime variety program of the Kapuso network. Thankfully, that ended as soon as the March 2021 COVID-19 surge dissipated.
That same month, on weekday primetime, First Yaya became the first Telebabad series to simultaneously broadcast on both channels plus Heart of Asia. The said act, however, temporarily stopped after FY ended, leading to the launch G! Flicks — which we’ll talk more about later. Back to the primetime dramas simulcast, it did return via Legal Wives, but later moved to a ‘delayed broadcast’ basis since September 2021. Currently, there are two Telebabad shows on GTV, with the first slot drama airing at 9:40 pm, while the second slot is aired at 11:30 pm every weeknight except Fridays, when it airs at 11:00 pm.
This setup, though, is rather unnecessary as the said slots could’ve been freed for other types of programs that are aired on the channels during fringes of its schedule. Maybe all the public affairs shows that were forced to be moved elsewhere in the grid could have been accommodated instead.
Speaking of news and public affairs shows, Saksi was also incorporated into the GTV programming grid, eventually creating a duo with State of the Nation. But that has resulted to a diluted SONA, which at least in the past few months, have shifted to showcasing more soft news stories — a far cry from the hard news and broadsheet-like approach during its Jessica Soho era. It is, however, understood that the channel’s formatting may have also signalled the transition of SONA to such.
The channel has also been notorious in changing timeslots and even exchanging shows with GMA in recent months (e.g. Pera Paraan). Take Reporter’s Notebook as an example. RN was first seen on GMA, before it moved to GNTV in 2020, before moving back to GMA, then back to the secondary channel via GTV. Upon transferring to GTV in October 2021, it was assigned the timeslot of Thursdays at 10:30 am via the GTV Reality block. Later on, the block was abolished, leading to Reporter’s Notebook move to Sundays at 9:15 pm. That case is also true for the likes of Good News, Brigada, Pinas Sarap, among other PA shows. Entertainment shows also had the same fate, especially for Taste Buddies, which moved from Saturday primetime to noontime.
GTV also chopped a day off of the Dobol B TV block. In October 2021, Sunday DBTV programs were removed from the lineup. In its place, the channel placed an expanded children’s and animated programming block that now goes by the name as Kiddie Authority. This move even prompted this blog to present the idea of having a standalone Dobol B TV channel on DTT.
After months of promotions, GTV’s youth-variety and sketch show Flex launched in July 2021, but was later quietly removed from the schedule after a month and is said to be “shelved” for the time being. Perhaps, due to the restrictions that was caused by the August 2021 Delta variant surge.
Finally, GTV also seems to be overreliant to movie blocks, despite the existence of sister channel I Heart Movies. In a past Trendrod Box piece, there was a discussion on how much movie blocks are on the channel each week. While the lengths mentioned in the said piece has already been partially reduced in recent months, still, the station remains to be committed in showcasing movies, which has been at times, overlapping with a movie block on GMA. This measure may have also been a result of the postponement or the transferring of some programs to the flagship (i.e. Heartful Café that was first promoted to air on GTV, but eventually aired on GMA and HOA instead).
Moving forward
With GTV still in its ‘infancy,’ there is still much room for it to improve upon. To be fair, they launched a brand new channel during the height of a global health crisis, a much bigger problem than anything else mentioned. But if its performance for the first year of its existence is to be an indication of how things will go for the channel moving forward, there are alot of warning signs that they might be able to switch off by placing the correct pieces in the puzzle that is the programming grid of the station. A problem that may be solved by slowly decluttering its lineup and pinpointing the right and balanced mix that will make their audiences more hooked.
All in all, GTV still has a bright future ahead of it. The team behind it just needs to crack the right code to really make and keep things good in their zone. However, they may also take on the challenge to do not just good, but better than what they did in year 1.
So, happy first anniversary and good luck, GTV!