Casual Cogitations

I must say, after being acquainted with this perpetual television rivalry for supremacy, my hands were eager for some action, I couldn’t wait to backfire everything I just read, in spite of the fact that I have no interest or past experience when it comes to anything remotely related to our Filipino entertainment commerce since I turned eight pips and set out to exhibit myself to series' that didn’t make me bash my own head to the wall day in, day out even before the credits begun rolling.

Truth be told, I don’t really give a hoot about ratings or such, as long as I get good quality programs. That’s probably why I am not bombarded with regular messages explaining some discrepancies in data gatherings for ratings in certain towns, on contrast to most patriots who struggle to watch our local news. I just don’t care.

At any rate, I like to disagree, if I may, with this faceted belligerency. It dawned upon me that the reason behind all this fuss is money. For us consumers ratings could simply be indicators of how popular a television (or radio) channel or network is, for a given time of the day. However, for the network and for the media industry, ratings represent pricing power. For media that are not able to count exact “hits” or “page views” ratings are used as an indication of popularity and reach. This translates to how much the television network or station can charge advertisers, particularly as they price ad spots on cost per thousand pairs of eyeballs (or impressions, if that’s a better term).

I can say that metrics and such “ratings” go only as far as being helpful as “first impressions” of a T.V series. What matters more to me is the quality of the content, and relevancy to my interests, and of course, if the show is able to reach out to me in a way I like. I would rather watch intelligently-written and presented TV series from a channel with low ratings, than watch crappy programming just because it’s popular among viewers.

So how about those networks with their rating wars? I’d say just focus on fixing the quality of your content, and perhaps the good ratings will follow.

Unfortunately everything I said up to this point is numb and insensible, because like I said, I do not even bother to glance around our local channels to begin with. If only I had a gentle heart and consider the fact that the Philippine entertainment industry is in its infancy compared to American and other national entertainment industries (not taking into account the third-world budgetary constraints imposed on most productions), I would just close my eyes to the small, forgivable faux pas and scapegoat formulas filmmakers resort to.

The real culprit I surmise is the “Pwede na ‘yan!” attitude and mentality ingrained in the Filipino consciousness. We as a people make do with mediocrity and just shrug, “Pwede na ‘yan. Di na ‘yan mapapansin” Unless we delete this pwede na ‘yan mentality, we will never progress.

The bad news for the entertainment commerce is that viewers are more intelligent these days and they know when they are being treated as fools or shortchanged. The good news though is that producers, directors and people in the industry are slowly realizing that quality, in the end, will thrill the viewers, make or break a show and determine its mass appeal.

Regretfully so, that is not where it stops. Because Filipino programs are not simply for entertainment; it's a reflection of the Filipino culture and these show also help shape up the identity and help shape further the culture of the Filipinos. And from what I’ve seen, the entertainment industry doesn’t crave for new concepts, ideas and twists, they’re fine with the way things are, and that my friend, is being sorely mediocre at best.

Avert your eyes all you want, but lets face it, how many times did a show made you scream out loud these questions: Why does the car always does a somersault and end up exploding in car chases? Why does the gun of the protagonist never runs out of bullets and gunmen never hits their targets despite the raining bullets? I’m sick and tired of having to sit through a show/film watching an amnesiac lead character be bumped in the head to miraculously get his/her memory to get back. Or the painfully dull and tedious rags to riches story, where the poor, underdog heroine who is being maltreated by her mother will soon find out that she's just adopted and really belongs to a filthy rich family. The puzzling thing is that the writers, producers and directors must be aware of how trite these scenes are, yet they still resort to the same formulas.

I don’t blame that Chinese journalist for stereotyping us as the nation of slaves, regardless of the fact that thousands of OFWs are employed in Hong Kong households as housemaids, helper or chambermaids, of course. Simply because not only that we act and look like a slave of nations, we don’t do feces to prove them wrong.

However, I do like the idea of a wide-awake media, without regard for their reasons, because I recall a Jefferson line that really had this resounding deep insight, ”The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” . And in our case, Filipino programs are always sleeplessly watchful on anything that pops out. Funny to think that there finally came a day when having an excessively greedy and power-hungry media became the safe-guard of our democracy.