Por Vida-TV

The broadcast of POR VIDA-TV has finally been set. The schedule was announced in an informal gathering at the Arctic Room of Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino last Monday, November 10th. The show wll air on Studio 23 starting Tuesday, November 18th, at 6:30 p.m.; and every Tuesday thereafter, same time. 

Honestly, we don’t have a complete season ready, as yet. We had just shot our 7th episode, out of the required line-up of 13 episodes to make up one TV season. But we’re not stopping now. We’re actually experiencing an adrenalin rush, more intense than ever, racing to finish a new show every week, as we begin to dish out the ones we have on stock, thus far.

The company that’s producing POR VIDA-TV in the present – the Headline Media Projects, Inc. – is small and starting. But that’s only as far as the company itself is concerned. The people behind it are big and established—big optimists and established dreamers!

I was very cautious when we first discussed about doing POR VIDA-TV this second time around. The first time the show went on air, about seven years ago, it did not stay very long. It just completed one season and then stopped.

But then, as we tried to analyze things over, we realized that the first POR VIDA-TV actually showed some bright promise. Very seldom does a TV show earn extensive following after just one airing. And more, rarely do viewers insist to buy a copy of an episode of a show that had just aired. It was like that with POR VIDA-TV then.

In the past, POR VIDA-TV’s viewer reception was unusually enthusiastic, apparently owing to the show’s right mix of substantive content and popular appeal. Yet, as the saying goes: Some good things never last. The TV show that had all the looks of success soon left the air lanes. It turned out that there was a lot more to TV business than good production alone.

We are trying harder now not to repeat our past slips. Some of us in the group are focused on marketing the show. They concentrate in finding sponsors, to see to it that viewers’ enthusiasm over POR VIDA effectively translates into commercial placements. We have come to realize that advertising support is very important, indeed.

There is a need to continually enhance the show’s content and overall production values. This means that production may necessarily get more costly. And we shall be ready with resources to respond to that.

The show must keep on stepping up production quality in order to always exceed viewers’ expectations, to keep them captured. As mentioned earlier, raising the quality bar means higher cost. And higher production cost demands more income.

We’ve learned our lesson. One of the difficulties that made POR VIDA-TV rather difficult to sell to advertisers rested in the fact that the show aired on cable TV. Viewership there was limited, not enough to generate popular notice of their products.

Transferring the show to a free TV channel is a major move geared towards marketing the show. Studio 23 can be accessed by the regular TV signal, without need for a paid subscription. And, here, POR VIDA-TV stands side by side with other fresh-concept, out-of-the-box shows. Hopefully, viewership will now be much better.

POR VIDA deals with subjects of curiosity, and questions that everybody has wanted to ask but doesn’t have the chance: What goes on in the mind of an inventor? Where do the new ideas come from? What inspires them? Does Cebuano music still have a chance in this internet-surfing generation? What tedious process does it take to make everybody’s favorite Titay’s Rosquillos? What was life like in old Cebu? 

On the more serious side: Why are there people living in the sidewalks? Is demonic possession for real? How does it feel to be diagnosed with cancer? What’s the experience like to die and come back to life?

These and more are the topics of the weekly POR VIDA-TV show. Each episode is extensively researched—from books, other available records and actual interviews—and features people who either have first-hand knowledge or are authorities on the subjects taken up.

The show’s production budget is austere. It’s always good for business to spend less, so long as quality standards are not compromised. Most of the time, only four persons go out on location shoots; sometimes five when the show Host needs to come along. We move very quickly, trying to cover several locations and finish numerous scenes in a day.

Even long before shooting, the gruelling tasks would already begin. Scheduling and coordinating is customarily nerve-wrecking. Especially that contacting locations and resource persons are done mainly by phone. Location shoots normally take two days within Metro Cebu; sometimes three, with visits to the city’s outskirts.

I think we do quite excellent multi-tasking. As director I often write scripts and do camerawork. Our show Host reviews the scripts and helps in the aesthetic designs. The production assistant does make-up, where necessary. Everybody does everything else, so that everything gets done—right and on time.

The first POR VIDA-TV, while it lasted only for a short while, was a positive experience, overall. The viewers enjoyed the show while it aired. For its producers, it was a good hands-on opportunity for learning what worked and what didn’t. The show was, after all, primarily intended to test the waters, so to speak. The previous production outfit, consisting mainly of neophytes in the TV business, wanted to try if their idea would work.

And now we’re ready to hit the air lanes, again. Please don’t forget to watch POR VIDA-TV’s lift-off—on Tuesday, November 18th, at 6:30 p.m. on Studio 23. And then block your schedule every Tuesday afterwards, at the same time.

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