PANGILINAN-LED television station TV5 remains bullish about breaking even this year after rebranding itself as a sports channel more than a year ago, its chief said on Thursday.
At the sidelines of a media launch, TV5 President Vincent “Chot” Reyes said that while generating a profit by the end of 2019 might be “difficult,” the station was looking “to take advantage of any opportunity that will allow us to achieve that target.”
According to him, TV5’s shift to showing sports content — which came after it teamed up with US-based sports channel ESPN in October 2017 that led to renaming its Sports 5 channel as ESPN 5 — allowed it to reduce its net loss by 30 percent in 2018.
This despite challenges facing the industry, including the decline in total television viewership, as seen in the weaker advertising revenues posted by ABS-CBN Corp. and GMA Network Inc.
The improvements, the TV5 president said, was buoyed by continued operational efficiencies, and the fact sports content does not demand high expenses, unlike conventional entertainment genres.
“I think the [partnership] with the ESPN was very important, because it gives us a lot of content at a cost [that] was not as prohibitive as it was when we used to do general entertainment,” he added.
“When the changes gain more traction — this is now year two, with 5 Plus coming onboard — hopefully we can further improve that by the end of the year.”
5 Plus is the new name of TV5 sister channel AksyonTV that will be relaunched on Sunday.
The rebranded channel would offer atypical entertainment, lifestyle, news, sports and sports-related content aimed at younger and more adventurous audiences.
It would air e-sports tournaments, including The Nationals, and feature games such as Dota 2, Mobile Legends and Tekken. It will also broadcast the National Basketball Training Center League and the National Cheerleading Championship, among others.
https://www.manilatimes.net/tv5-optimistic-about-breaking-even-in-2019/494897/
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