“Dahil hindi natutulog ang balita…”
On this day, exactly two decades ago, GMA Network debuted its flagship primetime newscast ’24 Oras,’ which replaced ‘Frontpage: Ulat ni Mel Tiangco.’
It was originally anchored by the tandem of the late Mike Enriquez and Mel Tiangco, with Pia Guanio joining them for the nightly showbiz news segment.
’24 Oras’ was pitted against the longest-running Filipino-language newscast, ‘TV Patrol’ of ABS-CBN.
Thanks to the strong performance of Kapuso programs that year, led by telefantasya ‘Mulawin’ and the reality program ‘Extra Challenge,’ the Kapuso newscast was able to take the throne as the number 1 news program from ‘Patrol’ by late 2004 — a position the ABS-CBN newscast held for 17 years.
The dominance of ’24 Oras’ by the end of its first year on-air also prompted the Kapamilya network to relaunch ‘TV Patrol’ as ‘TV Patrol World.’
Throughout the years, the competition between the two programs remained stiff, but after the ABS-CBN shutdown in May 2020, ’24 Oras’ became the leading newscast in the Philippines since then.
In 2023, it lost one of its pillars, Mike Enriquez, who passed away at the age of 71.
Although, in December of that year, his interim replacement Emil Sumangil formally joined the newscast to form a new troika with Mel Tiangco and Vicky Morales.