Five Things #7: Weekend Local TV
This weekend proved to be filled with entertainment in terms of sports and reality game shows. Those who patronize local TV or at least chose to tune in to local channels, like me, enjoyed most of what these networks had to offer on Saturday and Sunday. Our local entertainment is now past the telenovela/telefantasya era and is now focusing on the war on prize-oriented entertainment. I'll try to randomly highlight the weekend here.
1. For those who missed it and never really found out about it until now that I'm writing about it, yesterday was the UAAP-NCAA All-Stars edition for the benefit of Bantay Bata. Yes, there were a bunch of games yesterday meant to foster camaraderie among our collegiate players and promote children's welfare but you never really missed a lot as the pre-all-star game segment was, to be blatant, lame. I just actually caught the all-star edition by accident while surfing channels. Of course, still having the UAAP hangover, I wanted to catch a glimpse of our college basketball stars before volleyball and soccer fever take over in the second sem. While watching the two-three ball, slam dunk, and three-point shootout competition, I was switching channels and tried to just catch the finale of every segment. Watching at least ten guys (out of the 16 teams) vie for the respective crown was tiring. And add to that the non-existing crowd which was probably due to the games being held in the San Juan Arena, special thanks to Babyface for robbing Araneta from the Bantay Bata kids and most especially, the lack of promotions. Anyway, the UAAP bets lost; we were leading by more than ten points when the NCAA guys took the lead some time in the end part of the fourth canto. What was more important, though, were the priceless moments like when Cholo (DLSU) asked the ref why he did not call for a foul in favor of Ford or a red, blue, and green sitting together on the UAAP bench.
2. This Saturday's 1 vs. 100 edition was interesting as Randy Santiago went against a weird mob -- the little mob of 100 kids. He ended up winning some 300 grand despite the headache of answering questions which were closer to the hearts of these pre-teeners. To date, this game show is the most expensive in the country in terms of franchise rights and studio set preparation. Add to that,probably, the now high TF of Edu Manzano, which he actually denies whenever asked.
I believe he's the most effective game show host at this time. He has already surpassed Kris Aquino in approval ratings based on different forums and blogs I have read. Imagine a guy who has brought life to the almost deathly boring gameshow of GameKnB?! He did this by injecting his wacky comments, staging funny skits (which has never been observed much on game shows) and making the groovy retro "in" again. I have never seen any class higher than the masa or the critical public dance Willie's novelty songs before (except those brainwashed TFC subscribers who would pay dollars just to greet their relatives and dance Boom Tarat Tarat on TV).
Edu himself promoted his dance album on GameKnB by dressing up to the shaggy-delic character and dancing to the tune of Chacarron and Papaya. Streetboys also had their share of putting a modern groovy tinge to these dance songs.
You must watch the videos below!
Edu danced with Deal or No Deal's 26K here. Looks like they look better here than in primetime with Kris.
The Streetboys danced to the tune of the newly released dance song from Edu's album Bang! Bang! and Papaya. The video's a bit long with Edu introducing each member so scroll farther or just watch from here.
3. I have never seen a reality singing contest improve participants from being off-key to concert-worthy performers other than Celebrity Duets. Well, yeah, on second thought, that is actually the goal of the show where a non-singing celebrity is paired each week to a singer. But seeing Tessa Prieto-Valdes have a very entertaining number with Michael V. made me see her talent bloom beyond the already striking and eccentric outfits she wear every Saturday (actually everyday). She's one of the grand finalists and the winners will be announced next week.
You have to see how good she is!
Honestly, I did not really follow the whole season of Celeb Duets. I found the contestants not too "celebrity" and actually even Regine (one of the hosts) subtly mentioned in one interview that they wanted a broader range of celebrities in the next season. This season's roster was composed of cosmetic surgery biggies (Manny Calayan, Hayden Kho of Belo Group, and Jessica Rodriguez of Beverly Hills 6750), fashion icons (Tim Yap, Prieto-Valdes, and Frederick Peralta), a talent manager (Wyngard Tracy), and a beauty queen (Theresa Licaros). Not bad a lineup but could have been more non-elite.
Taking a leap from Celeb Duets, it was finalized some weeks ago that GMA7 has gained the airing rights for Philippine Idol Season 2 which they plan to show early next year. ABC5, of course, is not feeling good about this loss. The station has tried its best to bring Philippine Idol to us despite losing ratings from Pinoy Dream Academy of Ch2. They also said that the Kapuso Network should have remained true to its word of showing only local shows and I remembered commending them before for saying that they value Pinoy creativity. But now, it looks like the franchise wars is at its peak as ABS-CBN is supporting Endemol (PBB, Deal or No Deal, 1v100) while GMA is for Fremantle (Phil Idol, Celeb Duets, and the new game show, Whammy).
4. ABS-CBN took over a big share of Sunday's viewership with the Ibragimov-Holyfield heavyweight boxing match and Big Brother Celebrity Edition premiere. The Kapamilya network might have learned from last week's stressful boxing match and tried to be more prudent this morning. They started at 9am and ended a little bit after noontime which was very different from the way they handled boxing matches before. Probably it was also because ASAP had their 24K awards show afterwards which was meant to get even with GMA on ratings that the latter robbed the former last week.
The Celebrity Edition was a bit long but I glued myself to the tube since I know that I won't be able to catch most of the show and considering how the last celeb season was well-discussed, I know this one would be another controversy-filled edition again. Philippine Entertainment Portal(PEP) has predicted some time last week those who would be included in the 13 supposed housemates. It so happened that tonight, PBB mentioned that they'll be instead putting in around 15 (with two pairs being a two-in-1 housemate -- nominate one, the other will get nominated too).
5. The best way to end this five things entry is to go back to where I started. I started with basketball so I want to end with basketball too: the Philippine Basketball Association. PBA's 33rd season kicked off today. Despite some technical glitches and noticeable unpreparedness, they were able to pull off the opening ceremonies. I was surprised last week to know that after more than 20 years of bannering the San Miguel Beer flag, the Cojuangco franchise has changed its name to Magnolia Beverage Masters, which is a way to promote that new bottled drink endorsed by Angel Locsin, Erik Morales, and Alvin Patrimonio. I've been an SMB fan ever since I started to love basketball with the Skywalker - the MVP-who-has-never-been, Samboy Lim as my all-time favorite. When the Fil-Ams started playing in the league, I lost the appetite to watch but eventually now that I'm seeing more familiar names (both the veterans we all know when we were kids and our UAAP idols in their RSJ years) playing basketball, I'm now again going to watch PBA.
Today's match proved to be very Atenean with most of our UAAP players actually playing against each other. Magnolia has five Ateneans playing for them while Air21 has three. Red Bull also has three graduates from the Hail Mary squad while Ginebra caught our prized point guard Escalona. Ironically, MVP's TalkNText team has three Archer all-stars. My team won today, great start! If you look closely at their roster, Magnolia actually has three teams in one. You have to see their current lineup to see that anyone from the team can become starters for other teams.
1. For those who missed it and never really found out about it until now that I'm writing about it, yesterday was the UAAP-NCAA All-Stars edition for the benefit of Bantay Bata. Yes, there were a bunch of games yesterday meant to foster camaraderie among our collegiate players and promote children's welfare but you never really missed a lot as the pre-all-star game segment was, to be blatant, lame. I just actually caught the all-star edition by accident while surfing channels. Of course, still having the UAAP hangover, I wanted to catch a glimpse of our college basketball stars before volleyball and soccer fever take over in the second sem. While watching the two-three ball, slam dunk, and three-point shootout competition, I was switching channels and tried to just catch the finale of every segment. Watching at least ten guys (out of the 16 teams) vie for the respective crown was tiring. And add to that the non-existing crowd which was probably due to the games being held in the San Juan Arena, special thanks to Babyface for robbing Araneta from the Bantay Bata kids and most especially, the lack of promotions. Anyway, the UAAP bets lost; we were leading by more than ten points when the NCAA guys took the lead some time in the end part of the fourth canto. What was more important, though, were the priceless moments like when Cholo (DLSU) asked the ref why he did not call for a foul in favor of Ford or a red, blue, and green sitting together on the UAAP bench.
2. This Saturday's 1 vs. 100 edition was interesting as Randy Santiago went against a weird mob -- the little mob of 100 kids. He ended up winning some 300 grand despite the headache of answering questions which were closer to the hearts of these pre-teeners. To date, this game show is the most expensive in the country in terms of franchise rights and studio set preparation. Add to that,probably, the now high TF of Edu Manzano, which he actually denies whenever asked.
I believe he's the most effective game show host at this time. He has already surpassed Kris Aquino in approval ratings based on different forums and blogs I have read. Imagine a guy who has brought life to the almost deathly boring gameshow of GameKnB?! He did this by injecting his wacky comments, staging funny skits (which has never been observed much on game shows) and making the groovy retro "in" again. I have never seen any class higher than the masa or the critical public dance Willie's novelty songs before (except those brainwashed TFC subscribers who would pay dollars just to greet their relatives and dance Boom Tarat Tarat on TV).
Edu himself promoted his dance album on GameKnB by dressing up to the shaggy-delic character and dancing to the tune of Chacarron and Papaya. Streetboys also had their share of putting a modern groovy tinge to these dance songs.
You must watch the videos below!
Edu danced with Deal or No Deal's 26K here. Looks like they look better here than in primetime with Kris.
Click to viewThe Streetboys danced to the tune of the newly released dance song from Edu's album Bang! Bang! and Papaya. The video's a bit long with Edu introducing each member so scroll farther or just watch from here.
3. I have never seen a reality singing contest improve participants from being off-key to concert-worthy performers other than Celebrity Duets. Well, yeah, on second thought, that is actually the goal of the show where a non-singing celebrity is paired each week to a singer. But seeing Tessa Prieto-Valdes have a very entertaining number with Michael V. made me see her talent bloom beyond the already striking and eccentric outfits she wear every Saturday (actually everyday). She's one of the grand finalists and the winners will be announced next week.
You have to see how good she is!
Honestly, I did not really follow the whole season of Celeb Duets. I found the contestants not too "celebrity" and actually even Regine (one of the hosts) subtly mentioned in one interview that they wanted a broader range of celebrities in the next season. This season's roster was composed of cosmetic surgery biggies (Manny Calayan, Hayden Kho of Belo Group, and Jessica Rodriguez of Beverly Hills 6750), fashion icons (Tim Yap, Prieto-Valdes, and Frederick Peralta), a talent manager (Wyngard Tracy), and a beauty queen (Theresa Licaros). Not bad a lineup but could have been more non-elite.
Taking a leap from Celeb Duets, it was finalized some weeks ago that GMA7 has gained the airing rights for Philippine Idol Season 2 which they plan to show early next year. ABC5, of course, is not feeling good about this loss. The station has tried its best to bring Philippine Idol to us despite losing ratings from Pinoy Dream Academy of Ch2. They also said that the Kapuso Network should have remained true to its word of showing only local shows and I remembered commending them before for saying that they value Pinoy creativity. But now, it looks like the franchise wars is at its peak as ABS-CBN is supporting Endemol (PBB, Deal or No Deal, 1v100) while GMA is for Fremantle (Phil Idol, Celeb Duets, and the new game show, Whammy).
4. ABS-CBN took over a big share of Sunday's viewership with the Ibragimov-Holyfield heavyweight boxing match and Big Brother Celebrity Edition premiere. The Kapamilya network might have learned from last week's stressful boxing match and tried to be more prudent this morning. They started at 9am and ended a little bit after noontime which was very different from the way they handled boxing matches before. Probably it was also because ASAP had their 24K awards show afterwards which was meant to get even with GMA on ratings that the latter robbed the former last week.
The Celebrity Edition was a bit long but I glued myself to the tube since I know that I won't be able to catch most of the show and considering how the last celeb season was well-discussed, I know this one would be another controversy-filled edition again. Philippine Entertainment Portal(PEP) has predicted some time last week those who would be included in the 13 supposed housemates. It so happened that tonight, PBB mentioned that they'll be instead putting in around 15 (with two pairs being a two-in-1 housemate -- nominate one, the other will get nominated too).
5. The best way to end this five things entry is to go back to where I started. I started with basketball so I want to end with basketball too: the Philippine Basketball Association. PBA's 33rd season kicked off today. Despite some technical glitches and noticeable unpreparedness, they were able to pull off the opening ceremonies. I was surprised last week to know that after more than 20 years of bannering the San Miguel Beer flag, the Cojuangco franchise has changed its name to Magnolia Beverage Masters, which is a way to promote that new bottled drink endorsed by Angel Locsin, Erik Morales, and Alvin Patrimonio. I've been an SMB fan ever since I started to love basketball with the Skywalker - the MVP-who-has-never-been, Samboy Lim as my all-time favorite. When the Fil-Ams started playing in the league, I lost the appetite to watch but eventually now that I'm seeing more familiar names (both the veterans we all know when we were kids and our UAAP idols in their RSJ years) playing basketball, I'm now again going to watch PBA.
Today's match proved to be very Atenean with most of our UAAP players actually playing against each other. Magnolia has five Ateneans playing for them while Air21 has three. Red Bull also has three graduates from the Hail Mary squad while Ginebra caught our prized point guard Escalona. Ironically, MVP's TalkNText team has three Archer all-stars. My team won today, great start! If you look closely at their roster, Magnolia actually has three teams in one. You have to see their current lineup to see that anyone from the team can become starters for other teams.