There is little argument about what has become of Philippine commercial television.

What was branded “idiot

box” has evolved into what could now be labeled “national anesthesia.” Entertainment, for all its worth, has
become a most effective sedative or painkiller for the masa.

Creative and marketing geniuses of the broadcast industry explore every conceivable means to make daily
life seem bearable through exercises in escapism, hyping up the potency of hope and glorifying suffering vis-
à-vis rewards in the afterlife.

But of course that is all to serve an important purpose that has nothing to do with humanitarian causes: It is
to promote the network’s mission/vision, as well as its programs.

To quote a network executive: “When people come home at night, they are exhausted and do not want to
think. They’ve dealt with enough problems at work, so would they want to see more? Television is the only
relief in their dull, strife-riddled lives. They want only things that are pleasing to their eyes and soothing to
their nerves. So you offer them programs that will not tax their brains. You can show them, perhaps, that
others suffer more than they do but get rewarded with incredible fortune in the end. In short, you assure
viewers; you don’t make them feel worse.”

The result of this operating philosophy is very evident in the landscape of commercial broadcasting.
Programs have become… well, more of the same. Programming grids are tailored to fit standard templates,
regardless of what channel you favor on a daily basis.

Like so: High-energy noontime shows lead to the first leg of telenovelas in the afternoon, followed by early
evening news… and then a longer stretch of telenovelas, finally ending with the late night news. The rest of
the fare is telecast within whatever time is left till the National Anthem is played, ushering in the color bars.

Predictable

As if this predictability wasn’t enough, weekday soap operas must likewise carry the network’s signature.
The style and content of telenovelas are virtual thumbprints of the identity established and marketed by the
stations as they slug it out with rivals for a bigger share of the same audience.

If televiewers are assumed to be zombies who gravitate to the TV sets armed with clickers, then it’s easier
to understand why commercial TV has become what it is.

Competition is much stiffer now, considering the size of the proverbial economic pie. There is only so much
advertising money, measured against growing production costs, that risk-taking has become tantamount to
kamikaze. Innovation has become too big a gamble. So ideas are recycled, regurgitated and repackaged to
appear new, spotlighting reshuffled stars of various degrees of illumination to imply significance in the
supposedly new, earth-shaking, trend-setting production.

But after the pilot episode, we realize that the idea is just, again, more of the same. Soap operas stick to
exhausted but guaranteed-as-effective paint-by-number plots. Big, dark secrets, mistaken identities, lost
children and inevitable bouts of transitory amnesia are found in every other story line.

Comedy—the truly intelligent kind—has become extinct. Nowadays, humor in television is relegated to the
same old slapstick that has been around since TV shows were in black and white; or to comedy-bar humor,
where mocking or insulting somebody is passed off as wit.

Musical shows have also become predictable with the customary Sunday lunchtime “family reunions”: Stars
under contract or wanting to sign up with a TV network gather, often to subject viewers to sensory assaults
via pyrotechnics, really loud music, ineptly rendered songs, over-the-top costumes, and their limitless
capacities to look cute, many times illustrating an absence of verifiable talent.

Reference:

By: Jose Javier Reyes

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 08:21 PM November 04, 2012

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