Following recent changes to the Kapatid network’s news organization.
Last October 18 (Sunday), TV5 officially debuted the new look of its weekend news advisory program, which was formerly known as News5 Alerts from October 2020 until the week prior.
Effective on the said date, it began using the title Frontline Alerts—aligning with the flagship Kapatid newscast Frontline Pilipinas and its sister shows like Frontline Sa Umaga, Frontline Express, and Frontline Tonight.
Elements remained the same, with viewers getting a quick summary and update of the developing news stories of the day.
The retitling of the show came days after TV5’s news division, which was formerly known on-air as News5 from 2010 to 2026, formally adopted its new name as TV5 News.
Since announcing the move in early October, the new brand name has been rolled out in most of the department’s pages on various social media platforms.
TV5 NEWS HISTORY
The current TV5 news team traces its roots to the re-established Associated Broadcasting Company (ABC) in 1992. The said station was, in turn, born from the ashes of the original ABC-5 that dates back to 1960 until 1972—when it was forcibly closed due to the imposition of martial rule.
Originally, it was known as ABC News and Public Affairs and produced well-known shows such as The Big News, Balitang Balita, and eventually, Sentro, among many others.
Following the channel’s major rebranding in 2008 to become TV5, ABC News was also rebranded as the original iteration of TV5 News and Public Affairs (or TV5 News). Reports were also mostly seen on The Evening News and shows like Pulis Pulis.
After the MediaQuest group acquired the network in 2010, another facelift was given as they became TV5 News and Information under the leadership of Luchi Cruz-Valdes. However, on-air, the Kapatid news team was known simply as News5.
It also aligned them with other offshoots such as the news radio station Radyo5 (now True FM) and the emergency response team Rescue5. In 2013, they also launched News5 Everywhere, further cementing the brand as a pillar of the station.
However, Cruz-Valdes retired in 2024, with Patrick Paez taking over the role as the Vice President of the TV5 news department. Currently, he serves as the Head of the News Business Unit of MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., which is the parent company of TV5 and its sister platform Cignal TV, among others.
NEWS ALERTS
In 2010, when TV5 was relaunched as the Kapatid network, it started airing Aksyon Ngayon as its hourly news bulletin that aired throughout the day. It was based on the title of the network’s flagship newscast back then, Aksyon.
Later that year, it was retitled to Aksyon News Alerts to prevent confusion from the DZMM program and in anticipation of AksyonTV’s broadcast that started in 2011.
The latter station, which served as the sister free-to-air news channel of TV5, had its own separate bulletins known as Aksyon Breaking and Aksyon Weather (for weather news updates).
Fast forward to 2020, when both Aksyon and AksyonTV were already not around, TV5 launched its new brands for news on October 5, with News5 Alerts premiering in tandem with Frontline Pilipinas.
As the COVID-19 pandemic situation gradually improved and the network’s eventual programming shifts, the hourly news bulletin program was relegated to Sundays, when there is only one hour-long bulletin in Frontline Pilipinas Weekend.
