MANILA, Philippines – Not even the commercial success of the movie Rewind, the high ratings of It’s Showtime and Batang Quiapo, and the popularity of P-pop group BINI can stop the bleeding of publicly listed entertainment and media company ABS-CBN.

The Lopez-led firm, which used to be the Philippines’ largest media conglomerate before the Duterte administration shuttered its profitable broadcast business in 2020, said declining advertising revenues industry-wide has again forced it to lay off personnel.

“The company has made the difficult decision to retrench around 100 or about 3% of its workforce,” the company said in a statement shared with Rappler on Wednesday, October 16.

“We are committed to providing those affected with full benefits and support, and are deeply grateful for their many years of service to the company and the public.”

According to several ABS-CBN News employees, the decision was announced in a meeting on Tuesday, October 15. The retrenchment affects the whole company, not just its news division.

The media conglomerate retrenched roughly 5,000 of its workforce after it ceased to be a broadcast company four years ago. ABS-CBN and its subsidiaries had 11,071 employees before it lost its franchise, and ended 2020 with only 5,932 personnel after closing some broadcast-related business units such as its Regional Network Group (RNG) and other subsidiaries.

In May 2023, ABS-CBN announced the closure of its radio news channel TeleRadyo, which affected 68 personnel. Some of the affected employees went on to be rehired by House Speaker Martin Romualdez’s Prime Media under a joint venture with ABS-CBN called Media Serbisyo.

ABS-CBN now employs only around 3,300, or roughly 30% of its pre-shutdown workforce.

ABS-CBN said the “TV industry as a whole has been hurt by lower consumer spending which translated into lower advertising spends.” In addition, the company said it “is also being affected by the global decline in pay TV business.”

The Philippines is no different from the trend worldwide where consumers are no longer consuming entertainment and news on television and radio but have shifted to on-demand digital platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, prompting advertisers to spend less on broadcast media. 

Progress amid big debts

ABS-CBN, which has shifted to being a content creator, said the decision to retrench was made despite “significant progress in many of its businesses this year.” 

“TV ratings continue to improve, [movie outfit] Star Cinema produced two hits so far, with one of them being the highest grossing Filipino movie, and our music business has gotten a strong boost from the popularity of girl band BINI,” the company said.

Although it’s no longer a broadcast company, ABS-CBN still needs advertising revenues via content partnerships with the Philippines’ major networks. It is now the country’s leading content provider, selling its entertainment content to former competitors TV5 and GMA Network, and to streaming platforms like Netflix. Its flagship news program TV Patrol now airs on former senator Manny Villar’s media firm Advanced Media Broadcasting System (AMBS), which took over the Channel 2 frequency of ABS-CBN in 2022.

Coco Martin’s action-drama teleserye Batang Quiapo, which airs on the Kapatid channel of tycoon Manny Pangilinan as well as on Brother Eddie Villanueva’s A2Z channel, remains to be the Philippines’ highest-rating show. lt also one of the most-watched Philippine programs on YouTube.

ABS-CBN’s It’s Showtime has overtaken TV5’s Eat Bulaga! as the top-rating noon show in the Philippines after its former fierce competitor GMA Network started airing the show on its flagship Channel 7 and sister channel GTV last April.

ABS-CBN’s movie outfit Star Cinema co-produced the Philippines’ highest-grossing movie, Rewind, for the Metro Manila Film Festival 2023 which was shown until early 2024. It had grossed nearly P900 million worldwide as of January 2024.

ABS-CBN has also earned big from the movie Un/happy for You of the love team of Joshua Garcia and Julia Barretto. As of August 28, it had earned P320 million in ticket sales.

BINI is also now one of the most popular singing groups in the Philippines, after making it big with its hit song “Pantropiko.”

But all these have not been enough to stop the company’s losses.

Saddled by big debts and other financial obligations made worse by declining advertising revenues and consumer sales, ABS-CBN had a net loss of P13.5 billion in 2020, P5.2 billion in 2021, P2.6 billion in 2022, and P12.8 billion in 2023.

Prior to the shutdown of its free television and radio business in May 2020, the company generated P42 billion in revenues in 2019, with advertising revenues contributing P22.9 billion. Everything crashed after that. – Rappler.com