Muti-media giant ABS-CBN Corporation is no longer pursuing a new congressional franchise to return to the broadcasting industry but will instead focus on the business of providing content, with which it expects to finally bounce back to profitability this year.

“Even if Congress granted the franchise to ABS-CBN, we would not be able to rebuild our former national network, because all the frequencies we used to transmit have already been granted to other broadcasters,” ABS-CBN President and CEO Carlo L. Katigbak said during the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting held online on Thursday, June 26.

He noted that, “any solution that allows us to become a broadcaster again will require not just the franchise, but the return of the frequencies that we used to use.”

Thus, Katigbak said the company will instead focus on three things “producing the best content, the best stories; ensuring that we have successful partnerships with various broadcasters, whether on television or radio, to deliver our stories to the widest audiences; and pursuing our efforts to bring our talent and our content to a global audience.”

“By refocusing the company on becoming global storytellers, we are preparing for a future where television is no longer at the center of the Philippine entertainment universe. It is also a future that is borderless, where content producers must battle for their share of a global audience.

“Inevitably, the next five years will bring in more disruption arising from technology, geopolitics and industry development. But if there's one thing the past five years have proven, it is ABS-CBN’s ability to adapt to the times,” he added.

Katigbak is optimistic and said, “I believe we are finally well-positioned for a turnaround in 2025. The advertising market is recovering from last year, and we will get an extraordinary bump from election-related advertising…

“We hope to sustain the gains from our digital businesses while growing our international licensing film and music revenues. With reduced debt levels, we expect financing costs to decline, improving our cash flow and profitability.”

He also pointed out that, “We are already at an optimum level of spending… We have finally completed all our efforts to reduce expenses, and believe we are now operating at maximum efficiency. Costs have declined by 20 percent (in 2024) compared to 2023 and are currently at the level that we feel is sustainable.”

Total debt has come down from ₱21 billion in 2020 when the company’s broadcasting business was shutdown (because Congress denied its franchise renewal application) to ₱16 billion last year, following the sale of various non core assets.

With the pending sale of the firm’s three-hectare Quezon City property to Ayala land, ABS-CBN expects to further reduce its debt to around P13 billion by this year.

Katigbak said ABS-CBN plans to complete the consolidation of all of its operations and studios inside the ELJ Communications Center located at the remaining 1.3 hectares of the ABS-CBN compound by July 2026 and will turn over the three hectare portion to Ayala Land by December 2026.