ABS-CBN Corp. shares have started regaining momentum following talks on the revival of its legislative franchise and its efforts to seek dominance anew in the Philippine entertainment industry, analysts said Thursday.
The media giant's shares have already made "much progress," Philstocks Financial Inc. senior research analyst Japhet Tantiangco told CNN Philippines despite the fact that its closing price on Thursday remained weaker before it went off the air in May 2020.
Shares in ABS-CBN finished at ₱14.08 apiece on Thursday, still below its May 5, 2020 price of ₱17.50. Its franchise, which should allow it to operate its broadcast and radio businesses, expired on May 4.
But Tantiangco said the share price today already surged by 108.28 percent from its lowest on Sept. 2, 2020 of ₱6.76.
"The climb is seen to be caused by ABS-CBN’s entry into other platforms for its shows," he said.
ABS-CBN has long been banking its strong presence in the digital space, be it on Facebook or YouTube. In October of last year, some of its shows went back on TV screens as it sealed a deal with A2Z (formerly Zoe Broadcasting Network), which subsequently became available on SkyCable and MVP Group's Cignal.
On Thursday, the firm announced its longest running musical variety show "ASAP Natin 'To" and the collection of classic films of Fernando Poe Jr. in "FPJ: Da King" would be seen on TV5 beginning Sunday, Jan. 24.
"And then there are the renewed calls in Congress to provide ABS-CBN a franchise again," Tantiangco said. "Bills have been filed already both in the House of Representatives and the Senate for the media company’s franchise."
"And this has raised hopes that ABS-CBN could get back on air again," he added.
Tantiangco's statement was mirrored by Jervin de Celis, a trader at Timson Securities, Inc., saying ABS-CBN got a boost from the franchise renewal push of Senate President Vicente Sotto III.
But de Celis said investors are still on the wait-and-see mode as the push remains uncertain.
"While this is good news for the company, we still have to wait if the renewal will really push through and I guess this is the reason why the stock price is moving sideways for the past few days because investors are probably waiting for any development regarding ABS CBN's franchise," de Celis said.
A total of 70 lawmakers killed the franchise renewal application of ABS-CBN in July 2020, causing a negative domino effect in the company's operations.
ABS-CBN, which has been on the receiving end of President Rodrigo Duterte's ire on claims that the broadcast network was biased, was forced to cease some of its business operations, and lay off thousands of workers.
The absence of advertising revenues it used to generate from its broadcasting and radio businesses also weighed down its financial performance in 2020.
https://cnnphilippines.com/business/2021/1/21/abs-cbn-shares-slowly-recovering-from-2020-losses.html
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