Philippine commercial broadcaster ABS-CBN is set to return to its former channel slot almost four years after the country's National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) ordered it to sign off the airwaves.
The return was marked by a contract-signing event at the Brittany Hotel in Bacoor, Cavite, about 25 kilometers south of Manila, on Tuesday (Apr. 23) with Advanced Media Broadcasting System (AMBS), a media firm owned and operated by the Villar family, of which some of its members are currently serving in the Philippine government.
Several members of the Villar family, including businessman and former senator Manny Villar and his children—Camille, an incumbent representative in the country's parliament, and Mark, who currently serves as Public Works Secretary under Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s cabinet—were present at the contract signing.
ABS-CBN's president and CEO Carlo Katigbak, COO Cory Vidanes, Lopez Group CFO Rick Tan, and chief partnership officer Bobby Barreiro attended the signing, as well as members of the Lopez family, which owns the network.
While some of the comments on ABS-CBN's livestream welcomed the move, others expressed disappointment about how the network purportedly "lost its dignity" and sold out its credibility to the highest bidder after the media heartbreak of 2020, which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other comments also highlighted that Camille Villar was one of the Filipino lawmakers who denied ABS-CBN's franchise renewal when it applied for such and that after AMBS received its franchise, they now needed ABS-CBN to survive.
"There's a bit of a sentimental note for us today, because we're bringing one of our longest-running programs, TV Patrol, back to Channel 2," Katigbak said in a speech before the contract signing, referring to ABS-CBN's evening primetime news program.
"I know there are some who feel some pain over our return to our former channel, the home that was once ours. But in all humility, let's try [to] put all of the past behind us and embrace instead our mission to serve the Filipino, wherever they may be."
ABS-CBN—formerly broadcasting on the channel 2 free-to-air slot in Metro Manila—started its operations in the 1950s, with the relatives of former Philippine President Elpidio Quirino as its first owners.
The network eventually went to the hands of the Lopezes until the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. shut it down for the first time in 1972, which coincided with the country's martial law era. The network only returned to the airwaves in the 1980s after the older Marcos was toppled from power.
The network had a renewed prominence from the 1990s to the early 2010s. Still, the quality of its programs and other content has been significantly altered by the advent of social media, which it harnessed to its fullest capacity by the time it was forced off the air on May 5, 2020, by the Duterte administration.
Since then, ABS-CBN has had multiple content broadcasting agreements with other major players in the local industry, including block time agreements with Zoe Broadcasting Network to create "A2Z" on channel 11, content agreements with TV5, and even with its main rival, GMA.
Prior to the signing agreement, AMBS had broadcast several legacy ABS-CBN series and TV Patrol on its channel ALLTV since Apr. 15. The contract solidified the blocktime agreement, which would take effect on May 13.
