The Kapuso Factor (Speech by Felipe Gozon - 9th MAP Intl CEO Conference)
The Kapuso Factor: Now, let me share with you the Kapuso way of addressing the challenges of an increasingly global community -- one that is constantly connected and has transcended all barriers of geography, time, and language courtesy of technology -- by putting forth postulates.
My first postulate: it is not the media platform but the content.
To be blunt about it, good content is non-negotiable. More so now because social media platforms have made our audience bolder and more daring in telling us just exactly what they think of our offerings, be they on emerging Internet TV to the analog TV set and everything else in between.
GMA is skewed toward providing viewers with innovative original concepts... local concepts that espouse values relevant to Filipino cultural norms and traditions.
A breakthrough epic serye, Amaya has sparked a renewed interest in Philippine history and culture. With keen attention to detail in set design, colorful costumes, and historical basis for its storyline, Amaya aims to make us prouder of our culture as Filipinos.
Bubble Gang, our longest-running gag show is another proof that good content gives a program staying power.
Even the success of global titles like Stairway to Heaven, Endless Love, Jewel in the Palace, and Jumong, among others, is hinged on its localization. Dub-overs in Filipino made the copies more appealing.
Marimar, an old Mexican telenovela hit, packaged and done the Pinoy way, launched Marian Rivera to stardom.
And then, of course, we have multi-awarded documentary programs like I-Witness, Reporter’s Notebook, and Born to be Wild, to name a few. I-Witness has just brought home a second George Foster Peabody Award for the network. Thus far, we are the only Philippine broadcast station to have won the Peabody Award, considered as broadcasting’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize and the most prestigious award in the television industry. And we have won it twice!
My next postulate is this: “The platform is the medium.” This is my version of Marshall McLuhan’s famed “The medium is the message.”
In other words, our content must now be delivered seamlessly across a wide array of media platforms.
With technology spawning new ways of engaging the audience, we in the media business must work double time to keep up with the consumer’s increasingly speedy access to information and content.
While Channel 7 continues to be our primary channel, GMA News TV is fast gaining a foothold among the viewing public. After only seven months on the air, and powered by our unbeatable News and Public Affairs team, GNTV has already become the leading news and documentary free TV channel of Filipino viewers. GNTV’s flagship newscast, State of the Nation with Jessica Soho, has become one of the news sources of choice not only of viewers but by journalists themselves.
Aside from two major channels of content delivery, our online platform, GMA NewsOnline, also continues to grow. Logging in nearly one million hits a day, GMA NewsOnline is carving its own niche as a news source.
Through our digital media arm, GMA New Media, Inc, or NMI, we have been pioneering digital innovations, bringing distinctly Kapuso content to a larger audience base here and abroad.
With smart phones gaining traction in the local market, we launched m.GMANews.tv, a light version of our GMA NewsOnline. We also developed two new applications for mobile phones enabling users to download news at their convenience.
Our answer to the close competition between Android and iPhone operating systems is to address both brands’ consumers. Thus, we are the only local news Web site to have our own applications for both.
GMA’s shows are also more accessible now via a breakthrough mobile application called the Video Message Service. Otherwise known as VMS, it allows users to access clips of our top-rating news and entertainment shows. What’s more, viewers can also create personal videos and send these to family and friends via MMS or upload these to their Facebook pages.
NMI has also been producing advertising campaigns using Augmented Reality and 3D technology. AR is a new technology fusing real-world scenes and computer imagery in real-time. Brand experience through this is simply like no other.
And we are not stopping there. Every day is a challenge for us to continue offering products and services that should be better, faster, stronger and more accessible for mass audiences.
Owing to the flatness of our world nowadays, here is another postulate: across all modes of content delivery, we should ensure that our product offerings appeal to a wide spectrum of audience tastes and preferences.
Today, the interplay between local and global content is more relevant due to the inter-relatedness and globalization of various markets. In an online article, “Creating Content That Travels -- Internal Content Distribution,” Wendy Todd suggests many factors should be considered when creating or distributing content for and to an international audience. Meaning, what may become a top rater in one country may not necessarily succeed in another.
This is true for our domestic market as well.
It takes real understanding of the different cultures and different societies’ ways of living and interacting with one another to be able to come up with program and content concepts for specific audience targets. Take our experience in the regions vis-a-vis our entertainment and news and public affairs programs.
Our efforts in airing entertainment programs in the local dialect have yielded mixed results. We found that we need to continuously study our audience in the regions outside Mega Manila to come up with programs, whether in Filipino or in the local dialect, that will appeal to them.
But News is essentially local. That is why we produce local news programs in the vernacular, catering to unique information needs of regional audiences. For instance, local audiences appreciate that news is delivered by somebody who speaks their language. Cebuanos, for instance, appreciate that news about Cebu is delivered in Cebuano by Cebuanos themselves.
Collectively, the ratings of our local news and public affairs programs have been very positive not just vis-a-vis their direct counterparts but also when compared to our own national programs in the same time block.
The question amidst the existing global paradigms and local realities is, “Is GMA ready for the digital future?”
The answer is YES. But, of course, the reality comes with challenges that we in the media business need to address and overcome. Among them is the proliferation of choices. How do you dominate when the array of offerings for the audience is practically limitless?
Getting paid for what we provide is another grey area, as of now. Definitely, new business models should and will be developed. The problem with delivering content through multi-platforms is how we can monetize such activities..
Again, let me summarize the most salient points I have shared with you today:
1. Yes, GMA is ready for the digital future.
2. The media industry, on the whole, needs to embrace change and strategize accordingly, if it is to survive the changes being brought about by digitization.
3. Content is king and platform delivery is what it is all about.
Our children now will be leading lives made faster, flatter, and freer by technology. Simply put, they will have more choices than anyone of us in this room will ever have. That is why now, I am trying to learn touch screen technology even before any of my four, soon-to-be five grandchildren can even ask me about the next tablet or iPhone and its virtual keyboards.
Following us will be a generation that will not be awed when a hologram, instead of a real, in-the-flesh guest officer, similar to that at an airport in France, welcomes them. The next generation will not be as excited as we are about 3D or 4D technology because it may already be the norm then.
They may not get excited about having a high-powered but smaller data storage unit or USB which they can use with the latest satellite technology because by then, it may be what everybody else has.
But there are things that I know, in my heart of hearts, that will keep them excited -- yes, it all boils down to the basics... breakthrough content that can run across all media platforms and new ideas that are creatively executed like never before-be it a new gadget, a new program, or new and better technology....
That is as advanced as I can get.
