Channel 4's glory days

(First of two parts)

The head in one of the inside pages of a leading daily stated: “Legarda wants to revive state-run PTV-4.”

The truth is — Channel 4 is still there. But for those without cable, the reception is so bad that it doesn’t look like it’s there.

Undeniably, it is in the throes of death. Sen. Loren Legarda, fortunately, stepped in and remembered this long-neglected government station.

Compared to Channels 2 (it used to be 3), 7, 9 and 13, Channel 4 is relatively a young network. But it went through a tumultuous journey that its age had already long manifested itself. 

Just like in human life, there is nothing like poverty to age a person. Take a moneyed woman, who can afford to avail of Belo and Flawless services and has a leisurely existence in this material world — as opposed to someone her age, who went through hardship and had to survive by doing laundry. The impoverished one will definitely look so much older.

During the martial law years, Channel 4 was endlessly used and abused. It was like a prostitute, except that a streetwalker enjoyed better pay.

Starting with this two-part series, I am tracing the unofficial history of Channel 4 — from the time it was a commercial station owned by ABS-CBN to the present.

I say unofficial history because I am not even looking at records as I write this. There may be records, but those may be inaccurate.

I stopped reading the ABS-CBN history because the pieces of information it provides the public — though I’m sure unintentional on its part — have a lot of inconsistencies. I realized this when I used to be enrolled in a fitness center that was housed in its new building.

Every time I passed through the lobby, I shuddered at the inaccuracy of the captions that accompany those black and white photos displayed there. I can’t even blame ABS-CBN today for not having kept proper records because martial law just swooped down on it and no one could retrieve documents after getting padlocked. Ask award-winning director Gil Portes, who was a very young talent then working for the TV giant. 

The Channel 4 history I am writing is based on how I know it. I may not be a hundred percent accurate, but I am open to corrections — though you better prepare yourself to a long debate with me.

And so here it goes:

Some five years prior to the declaration of martial law, the only stations were Channels 2, 5, 7, 9 and 13.

Then toward the ’70s, ABS-CBN began to reconfigure its signal to give way to a sister network that was to become Channel 4.

By 1971, ABS-CBN Channel 4 was already in full commercial broadcast. It’s pre-primetime program was a game show called Premyo sa Kuwatro, hosted by Maya Valdes (she is Mitch today).

Around this time, the nightly variety series Oras ng Ligaya on Channel 2 had already been cancelled and in its place was On With the Show and the hosts were Baby O’Brien and Manolo Favis.

Eventually, Ms. O’Brien was taken out of the program and was given her own — Wow Generation on Channel 4 that competed directly against On With the Show.

On primetime were weekly sitcoms — Mission: Patok (every Monday), Ala Eh! Buhay Maynila (every Friday) and Wanted: Boarders (every Saturday).

 Channel 4 also aired one of the finest drama anthologies on local television: Salaghati that featured different female stars late Saturday evening.

It was a thriving network, except that it was killed at infancy by Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law in September 1972.

 (To be concluded)