I-conic. B-old. C-losing?
During a budget deliberation for the Office of the Press Secretary, Sec. Trixie Cruz-Angeles confirmed that some of the attached agencies and companies of her agency have received 0 budget for the year 2023. One of them is the Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (IBC), a network that was sequestered by the government in 1986 from the Benedicto clan.
According to Cruz-Angeles, should IBC not receive any funding in the 2023 General Appropriation, in which the money will be used to cover operational costs — including salaries of its more or less 300 staff members network-wide and retirement benefits of little less than 150 people — the beleaguered network will have to let go of their employees and cease operations as early as January next year. The OPS, however, has negotiated to at least allocate some of its proposed Php 1.2 billion budget to IBC.
The silver lining in this situation is that the non-allocation of government funds for the station opens the door to for its long-coveted privatization. But that, has to come soon and fast — a feat that is not easy, given that a potential buyer must shell out at least Php 10 billion to acquire the network and settle IBC’s obligations. By law, Php 1 billion from the sale of IBC will be used for upgrading PTV-4.
At present though, no personalities or companies have stepped forward to buy the ailing network. That is despite Senator Imee Marcos saying in the a GOCC public hearing last year that she knows “many politicians and oligarchs” who are keen to scoop up a TV station like IBC.
Given that the deadline is coming within a quarter, how could IBC’s seeming inevitable closure be reversed, should the budget it requires to keep itself afloat be declined?
Selling individual IBC stations as ‘franchise regions’
Heard of the original Independent Television in the United Kingdom?
If you aren’t familiar, ITV was launched in 1955 as a group of independent broadcasters across the kingdom. These stations were tasked to produce their own set of shows mostly for their localities, but also some for the national network. Apart from that, national news programs like News At Ten were supplied by another company via ITN, making the majority of operations, with the exception of scheduling, of the network as autonomous as possible.
In IBC’s case, should they try to explore this set-up, the partition could be made by selling its regional stations to other companies, but require them to operate with IBC’s name. And no, this wouldn’t be a blocktime arrangement, but rather the operators owning the station in their locality — ala ITV as previously stated.
The programming for most of the airtime must be dependent on the individual owners. But the main network, which will be based in Manila, should be required to provide no less than 20% of the day’s programming — which will cover news and public affairs.
Perks? Well, dividing IBC to smaller units can make selling the network easier, especially if a buyer in the national level becomes much more elusive as the deadlock nears. Also, this would make the broadcaster a go-to for regional affairs, which is currently only covered by GMA and (to a much smaller degree) PTV, as there has been a void left by ABS-CBN Regional’s demise in 2020. Ultimately and in the long run, repurposing IBC as a region-centric network could help its cause of reintroducing its brand to the people and regain footing that it has struggled to find since the late ’80s.
Selling parts of IBC’s airtime permanently to various owners
Foremost (and again), this won’t be a block time arrangement.
Another way to go about is by selling dayparts of IBC permanently to various production outfits and company. Here, the buyers would take hold of the timeslots on the channel without having to pay a fee every now and then. Perhaps, this could be called as a ‘time share’ set-up, whereas the IBC TV channel would become divided across the day.
For example, IBC’s daytime could be bought by a teleshopping/e-commerce company, but its primetime hours will be operated by a different content provider. Branding-wise, they shall also be considered a different channel. On their own, they could also sell parts of their own airtime to blocktimers.
As an entity, these smaller companies could be set up as a consortium and own shares of IBC depending to the number of hours that they will operate. Of course, it would still be ideal for a single company to buy the entirety, but it is much realistic to sell these tiny bricks of time, given the (ironically speaking) time constraints that IBC has at the moment before that D-day comes.
Keeping IBC as a government asset, but…
An unorthodox idea, but a necessary option, perhaps?
Despite privatization calls, in the interim, keeping IBC as an asset of the state can also be considered. But this time, instead of making it part of the Press Secretary’s office, another department can take over the station for their use.
For example, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) can make IBC a full-time weather and hazards monitoring channel care of PAGASA, PHIVOLCS, and with the coordination of various agencies and NGEs (non government entities). While it is costly, the lack of a mainstream and rolling source for these vital services can outweigh that, considering that the Philippines is vulnerable to these natural disasters.
The Department of Education (DepEd), which utilized the station to broadcast DepEd TV from 2020 to 2022, can be tapped anew to permanently transform the channel to a full-time educational service network. They can also add programming from select agencies, like the NCAA, NHCP, among others, to beef up its educational offerings.
Another option is to actually implement the ‘time share’ idea, where several agencies will each have their own daypart for their own instructional programming. Honestly though, that might seem redundant given that PTV, the de-facto primary government station, also needs to get its own programming boosted.
Maybe make it a public broadcast network in the meantime?
Should none of the abovementioned ideas work, IBC could be made a self-sustaining public broadcast network. How? Maybe by setting up a law that would require the state to inject capital and write off debts incurred by the corporation (a.k.a. allocating budget for the network for the final time in decades), but the company will have to run on its own from then on. Profits gained by the company should be required by the very same law to be invested into its technical capabilities and programming.
The government must also have no hand its editorial policies and management, but there should be a provision that will allow the company to get necessary funds in the event that the country faces a recession.
Therefore, this would effectively make the corporation the Philippines’ version of Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, which is reportedly going to be privatized in the next few years.
In this manner, the government will not be completely letting go its interest in the channel (just yet). But, it will also help IBC transition from a government ownership and prepare for its eventual privatization years down the road — a.k.a. helping to increase the network’s valuation first.
It would be a shame to let IBC go in the immediate future, not solely because of its historical contribution to the Philippine television landscape, but also due to the fact that it can be repurposed for a much greater use that would benefit the general public.
While there is still enough time for Congress to grant the stopgap measure that is to give IBC the money that it needs to keep jobs and operate still, finding ways as early as now to prolong the network’s life beyond 2023 is a must. Even if it gets the budget for next year, IBC, and most importantly the general public, will benefit from the crafting of a comprehensive long-term solution for the broadcast network.