Talk about showbiz

I bumped on an eight-year-old yet interesting statistic from the Philippine Institute of Development Studies that the country's entertainment industry is said to account like 4.6 percent of the total revenue of the Philippine services sector. 

It doesn't say, however, actual contributions of the music and local performing arts like film, theater, recording and income in concerts and the like. But my hunch is that, these subsectors belong to the same pride that captured much of the lion's share of the whole showbiz industry.

A more recent study caught my attention on the state of the film industry from the Asian Institute of Management entitled The Film Industry: Problems and Prospects citing piracy, heavy taxation, foreign competition and lack of technology being responsible for the continuing decline of the country's film business.

While "The piracy of commercial music on compact discs has been so rampant in the Philippines as to alarm not only the recording music industry, but also some agencies of the state." says Jonas Baes, Assistant Professor, College of Music, University of the Philippines in his research Towards a political economy of the "real": music piracy and the Philippine cultural imaginary (2002). 

So the way things are going, one can easily surmise that the last stronghold of the whole entertainment business is in broadcast entertainment (soaps, game shows and etc) which relies heavily on advertisements to payoff expenses in production, crew and talents.

But, the local broadcast industry has problems of its own. Since the introduction of cable TV, viewership in terrestrial TV has also narrowed down since -- splitting advertising budgets to non-terrestrial networks. And don't forget, Internet is also another competitor to reckon. Just last July, The Los Angeles Times published Outsells Inc's report how Internet outclassed both TV and Radio combined in ad revenues. My best guess is that, it is highly probable that in some future time, TV advertising in the country may also split or even get redirected to Internet campaigns diluting advertising spending of companies more thinly.

Thus, the local entertainment industry cannot rely so much on TV for the long term to be able to cash in from there.

However, it's not the end. I believe in the local talent but not our talent managers or scouts. When I saw Charice Pempengco performed with the big stars like Celine Dione, Andrea Boccelli over YouTube, I felt shamed by the sheer confirmation of how misplaced their definition of what talent is. Forgive my candor, but I have always prayed for the deserving demise of these local talent scouts that send "artists" onstage or on film with nothing but "glutathioned" faces. Even more shameless is that these talent managers have the audacity to tell it to our faces over live television that looks is more important than a talent. "Kung ako ang manager mo, mabebenta kita dahil may mukha kang ihaharap." as if it's okay to be a dimwit or off-key for as long as you're a looker.

Irreverent as he is, I don't recall Simon Cowell or any respected talent juror ever mentioned anything about "looking good to landing it big." Paul Potts, as an example and despite his age, falls short of that Adonisian criteria yet scooped the most coveted honor in last year's British Got Talent. Arnel Pineda, the Filipino voice sensation who replaced Steve Perry of the Journey and Charice Pempengco surely did not at all earn their rightful space in international showbiz circle for their faces. Their recognition is brought about by simply the ability to enamor their audience by their talent.

Talent, according to the dictionary means "a special natural ability or aptitude." And how many local talents can you find onstage or on TV that fits or qualifies this definition? For sure, you would have trouble listing down at least a dozen of them. 

As I have said, there is still hope. For the showbiz industry to thrive and sustain, it has to rise above the ephemeral. Talent is a commodity that people patronize. Talent also has a premium, and people pay for the quality of the entertainment that is served to them.     

The local showbiz can choose to stay from where it is now – mediocre. And for as long as it stays that way, it chooses its own death.

Send emails to [email protected]