Five Effects of ABS-CBN Franchise Loss in PH Media

ABS-CBN 2 President and CEO Carlo Katigbak is looking at ways of continuing ABS-CBN’s mission of serving the Filipino people. With the loss of their Congressional franchise to operate, ABS-CBN 2 remains only to be seen by Filipinos through the internet– something which diminishes substantially its value for advertisers. The Philippines may be a big Internet market, but it is so fragmented, and somewhat hard to crack.

The obvious question everyone is asking: where will the 45% market share go? Admittedly, ABS-CBN has dominated the Philippine media market for many decades. Of course, ABS-CBN would surely maintain a fraction of that humongous market for the next one and a half years.

1. Death of an ecosystem.  With the franchise gone, ABS-CBN has no choice but to drastically scale down their operations. First to go would surely be production people. It would be foolhardy for ABS-CBN to produce entertainment shows and squeeze it all to their digital platform. It just not possible. So, entertainment shows will be the first to go followed closely by some public affairs programs. To keep itself alive, ABS-CBN must maintain its dominance in the public affairs and news department.
2. ABS-CBN as a content provider. ABS-CBN has to morph itself up as a foremost, content provider and not a platform. The loss of the franchise did not prevent them from operating their film company. And it surely does not prevent them from transforming themselves into a Viva. ABS-CBN must find ways of puncturing the regional markets. ABS-CBN News could now transform itself into a news wire service platform.
3. Weakening of the entire entertainment industry. Whatever you say about ABS-CBN, it is still the biggest employer in the media industry. Yah, it may have committed serious sins, but hey, it has made several artists and personalities billionaires. With the loss of some of its shows, thousands of firms and people who depend on ABS-CBN for their monthly incomes would find themselves shirtless beginning Monday.
4. Go global. ABS-CBN just lost its franchise to air–it did not lose its creative and technical assets. ABS-CBN can still produce shows for syndication abroad.  Countries with presence of a Filipino community are markets.