PBA’s new home

It’s official. ABC-5 is the new home of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) games.

PBA and officials of ABC-5 have signed last Thursday a memorandum of agreement for a co-production arrangement between the two parties for a period of one year beginning next month when PBA opens its new season.

ABC 5 will be airing the games and marketing it both to the audience and to the advertisers through its marketing arm, the Associated Broadcasting Marketing Corp. (ABMC).

The network, now under new management (following its acquisition from Edward Tan by a group led by Tonyboy Cojuangco), bested three other offers including those of NBN Channel 4, Jemah, and Solar Sports. And why not? Tonyboy‘s camp definitely has the resources and the heart to make the arrangement work, and the added reach (PBA will also be aired over Dream Cable, Tonyboy’s satellite TV company). After all, PBA’s success will be ABC 5’s success.

Under the co-production scheme, ABC and PBA will be sharing in the revenues. This is a new thing for PBA considering that in the past, a franchisee who gets the license to cover the games merely pays a franchise fee to PBA after which the latter will no longer intervene with the coverage. But PBA learned its lesson well. If it wants to reinvigorate professional basketball in this country, it has to be more pro-active and more involved, even with the coverage of the games.

NBN Reacts

We read with interest your column today titled "ABC-5 to get PBA telecast" particularly that portion where you said that the PBA "was so disappointed with the way NBN handled the whole thing (games coverage)."

We wish to stress that NBN was merely part of a consortium which covered the previous games. Our partners were IBC-13 and Summit Sports World Corp.

We admit that we encountered problems covering the PBA games last year. In fact, towards the end of the Third Conference, IBC-13 stopped airing the games and our financier also stopped providing the funds for the coverage. Left alone, NBN harnessed its own resources to honor its commitment as coveror.

This is not to say that the league was not hobbled by image problems while the games were on which greatly affected sales and marketing. We note here the drug issues involving some players as well as the Fil-Am scandal.

Network sales also suffered from wayward advertising like ads painted on the court. By our estimate, this type of ads ate up P110 million of possible revenues.

It is rather saddening that as of today, we have not been formally informed of a possible change in the PBA games coverage. We have heard such things only through the papers like information dished out by columnists.

You may be interested to know that NBN offered a co-production scheme with the PBA as part of a proposed joint venture which hopefully would put all parties on a roll. We understand the proposal was described by PBA Commissioner Noli Eala as "the best offer at present." Whatever the outcome might be, we wish to assure you that we will abide by it. – MIA A. CONCIO, Chairman and President, NBN

Announcement

Here’s something for those of you who want to add another feather to your cap or who simply want to know that they are among the brainiest. Mensa Phils. president Dodie Navarro has announced that this prestigious group is holding a qualifying session on Jan. 31 at the Oakwood private room at the 6th floor of Glorietta 4 in Ayala Center.

The Philippine group is an emerging national Mensa under the auspices of Mensa International which has over 100,000 members in over 80 countries worldwide. Actress Geena Davis, comedian John Cleese, author Jean Auel and science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov are some of the more prominent Mensa members.

The sole criterion for membership in Mensa, is to score within the top two percent (98th percentile and up) on an accepted and properly supervised qualifying test. The test is the abstract reasoning type and there’s no time limit. One can start the test anytime between 9 am and 3 p.m. But preregister and then on the day of the test, bring a valid ID and pay the testing fee.

More information regarding Mensa’s qualifying tests may be found at: http://ph.mensa.org/qualify.html

To pre-register, you can e-mail [email protected] or text (0916) 4186931 or PR director Tonton Alcantara at (0920) 9035825. Follow the following format: Jan. 31 Testing <space> Lastname <space> firstname <space> landline_or_email <space> question (if any).

For comments, e-mail at [email protected]