Media Biases

TV Patrol's rating is going down the drain.

If you watched the news program earlier you'd know what I'm talking about. I didn't get to actually see it but my sister filled me up with what happened. It started out as a casual interview between Karen Davila and Susan Roces, the wife of the late FPJ, but ended with Roces' resentments against Channel 2. I don't want to go into details because I wasn't able to watch the interview myself, but this certainly is bad news for ABS-CBN and the Lopez family.

According to one of my professors, the Lopezes would watch TV Patrol and if they see news that they didn't like they could call the news department and have them cut the footage. I guess they weren't watching when the interview aired on national tv, or maybe they did watched but they weren't expecting the bitter remarks of Susan Roces coming. Cutting the feed would only make things obvious. Imagine the damage caused on the station's reputation when the wife of an icon in the movie industry looks at the camera and makes an open statement like this:

"Channel 2, galit ako sa station niyo..."

And to think that it was aired live on national tv on Channel 2's own news program, it only spells disaster for the network. Serves them right though for being too biased in their news. You see the Lopez family is the probably the most influential family in the whole country. They control our water, electricity, even the programs that we watch in their station. With such power and wealth it would only translate to them being pro status quo. Which further implies that they necessarily have to be biased in what they show in the news so that they could attain their status quo. Susana Roces pointed out in the interview that Channel 2 edited the footages of FPJ's campaigns cutting out scenes that showed the people who supported him.

Their bias on the adminstrative candidates caused the ratings of the network to drop during the election season. Although ABS-CBN denied that their decision to replace Korina Sanchez with Karen Davila has nothing to do with the ratings, I highly doubt it. You see, Korina's relationship with Mar Roxas subtly identifies her with the GMA administration. The masses can see this and they're not happy with it. With the dropped ratings, Korina is now seen as a liability to the news program so they had to replace her.

Even though the ratings only apply to the news program it could affect the whole station. The viewers who watch GMA's 24 oras got into the habit in staying tuned for the teleseryes which followed which explains the success of Mulawin over Marina. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in the near future GMA would replace ABS-CBN as the best station in the Philippines.

This entry was posted on December 16, 2004 at 8:53 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.