MEDIUM RARE
Brace yourselves for a three-cornered fight ...! The battle for supremacy at high noon is one week old today. Whether the TV audience is fickle or faithful, loyal, and true, the initial ratings are in. TVJ on TV5 starring Tito, Vic, and Joey... versus GMA’s Eat Bulaga hosted by Paolo Contis and Isko Moreno... versus Vice Ganda and friends on It’s Showtime on Kapamilya... Will viewers be switching channels every 20 seconds or staying put, sticking to their one and only? It looks like the lunchtime buffet has changed the TV landscape, if not the audience. What would Marshall McLuhan, the guy who said “the medium is the message,” say about this contest? Whatever the answer, it appears that the purpose of the shows – each a three-hour marathon from noon to three – has been repurposed from being a mere habit for stay-at-homes into a hectic race for ratings, advertising revenue, and audience loyalty. The formula seems to be the same for all three. Entertain with lots of movement (dancing and games), hilarity (wisecracks and jokes), and sounds (music, singing, laughter). Most important, there are cash prizes galore for participants in the studio as well as outside, street people lucky enough to be spotted by one or another of the hosts. Nielsen posted the nationwide ratings on July 2, the day after Tito, Vic, and Joey entered TV5 via a motorcade that lasted 20 minutes (!). Their 8.4 percent grade puts them way above Vice Ganda’s Showtime on four channels, including cable, at 7.88. TAPE’s Eat Bulaga was down at the cellar with 2.62, in spite of GMA’s dominance of the airwaves. But then, as most everyone knows by now, TVJ has an incredible history of 44 years together as a troika, or 132 years, the sum of their individual experiences. Apparently, their fans appreciate the guys’ spontaneity, their chemistry as well as an unspoken no-hogging rule. It also helps that they don’t need a dozen other co-hosts to occupy the stage and screen with them. Eat Bulaga is now minus the “Dabarkads” and TVJ’s E.A.T. is minus Bulaga. And what does E.A.T. mean? Joey de Leon said it best: “Eto ang title.”