A bolder battle plan for GMA-7

Things are jumping over at GMA-7, whose management, now under president/chief executive officer Felipe Lapus Gozon, is aiming for the skies, effective "yesterday."

The station is cooking up a heady brew of news and public affairs programs, and a string of telenovelas to meet competition head-on.

So when network executives, led by Gozon, executive vice president/COO Gilberto Duavit Jr. and marketing services president Manuel Quiogue called for a presscon, it was a show of force that brought the message home loud and clear: they are ready for battle.

For instance, since survey shows housewives are a formidable viewership block, the network will strengthen its drama programs, airing as much as five telenovelas a night.

The inventory in this department is long, assures Gozon, who took over the reins of the station in October 2000. So expect a flood of suds, every hour, on the hour, and at primetime, too.

The call of the hour, therefore, is for Thalia (now Mrs. Tommy Mottola of Sony Records) to make a grand comeback.

"We learned that some of the Marimar followers have not followed the series from Day One," says the amiable Gozon.

The greatest plans of mice and men will crumble to pieces if the necessary infrastructure is absent. Network movers and shakers promise to spread the station’s tentacles even further and strengthen their grip in the regions.

The Davao antenna, for instance, will be replaced for a 60 percent improvement in signal within the next two months. The Naga transmitter will be relocated, and existing ones in key points like Cebu, Davao, Iloilo and Dagupan will get a shot in the arm.

By shot in the arm, Gozon and company mean optimum signals, better studio facilities, and manpower perks like improved newsgathering skills of regional staff.

After all, you can’t put one over viewers these days anymore. A housewife, for instance, will switch to another channel if she finds the production design on a show bland and flat.

This enlightenment is written all over all sorts of feedback today’s TV stations get from viewers, compelling executives to re-examine the tools of the trade.

Then, there’s the magic of technology. GMA-7 has gone full-steam ahead in computerizing its financial systems. This way, management can make that monumental decision of retaining or axing a program, a lot faster.

Through the wonders of Oracle, profitability reports come in a jiffy. The figures – cold but accurate – will tell the whole story at once. And the moments of suspense about a show’s fate is drastically shortened, if not entirely cut off.

Thanks to technology, too, the network plans to expand its reach overseas by setting up its own channel abroad, "hopefully this year," according to Gozon. Something like the Outstanding Filipino Channel, perhaps?

But then, the best facilities and machines are useless without the human factor at work.

There will be no manpower displacement. This much Gozon assured in the wake of speculations that people under the old Bobby Barreiro management will have to go. If you perform well, it doesn’t matter who hired you. You’ll always be part of the family.

This people-oriented outlook in mind, the new GMA-7, has also set its eyes on training. Developing people who will write good telenovela scripts, young talents who will be tomorrow’s dramatic stars, etc., demand huge investments in time and effort.

But GMA is leaving no stone unturned in making sure it meets the challenge head-on.

After all, who wants to see the same old faces on the screen over and over? The young ones need new idols – those they can identify with. That’s good news for talented ones who want to take a crack at the medium. Ok, ok, the rival station is also doing that.

So how about the big, bold move of dubbing Hollywood movies in Filipino? It’s been untried. But given a dynamite of a talent like Gina Alajar doing the dubbing, that’s a whale of a difference. And GMA-7 has started to enter this territory by airing Sally Fields’ An Eye for An Eye. More titles are coming, so it’s best to wait and see.

Meanwhile, the TV landscape is not only getting curioser and curioser. It’s also getting more colorful and exciting. At a time when more and more people prefer to watch a show or a telemovie in the comfort of their homes, that’s something to rejoice about.