The full-page story in The Wall Street Journal’s latest issue on how Willie Revillame (bottom, with co-host Shalani Soledad) and his show Willing Willie has drastically changed the advertising game in Philippine television.
From the tabs, Willie Revillame has made a dramatic leap to the international media via an article titled ‘Willing Willie’ jolts Philippine TV in the latest issue of The Wall Street Journal.
Subtitled “Popular host’s departure from big network for upstart channel sparks lawsuits and shakes up advertising market,” the story quoted a Nielsen Co. data noting that “with nearly $4 billion in spending last year, the Philippine TV market is bigger than India’s and on par with Indonesia’s” and it’s because “while newspapers take up the bulk of advertising in India, TV eats up about 75 percent of ad spending in the Philippines and draws buyers from around the world” presumably because of the two top network’s relay stations abroad, ABS-CBN’s TFC (The Filipino Channel), and GMA’s Pinoy TV (in some places) and GMA Life (in other places).
The story pointed out that until “Mr. Revillame (pronounced reh-vil-YA-meh) defected to TV5, the Philippine TV market was dominated by ABS-CBN (Willie’s former home channel. — RFL), which had P24 billion ($554 million) in revenue in 2009, and GMA Network Inc.,” adding that after Willie took his show (retitled Willing Willie from Wowowee) to TV5, he perhaps unwittingly acted as Pied Pier and prompted other stars from other channels to follow suit.
According to The Wall Street Journal, while GMA remains the No. 1 channel, “in the fourth quarter TV5 grabbed 29 percent of the weekend primetime audience in the Manila to become No. 12, overtaking ABS-CBN which had 23 percent. GMA sources were quoted as saying that it “welcomes the entry of TV5” and doesn’t see it as a threat in the Manila market. TV5 executive Ray Espinosa was also quoted as saying that TV5 “expects to capture a third of total TV ad spending in the Philippines by 2015, up from 10 percent.”
Meanwhile, Willie is facing yet another TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) case filed against him by ABS-CBN. He has also earlier brought up a “breach of contract” case against his former network.Courtesy: Philstar dot com
