The Head of ABS-CBN News, Regina Reyes, speaking at ABU-Rai Days, told the story of how her broadcast company lost its broadcast licences two years ago because the previous president, “didn’t like our content.”
At the point of licence renewal the regulator did not grant a new licence for the company’s continued operation and it was issued with a ‘cease and desist order’ which forced the company of 11,000 staff to close its radio and tv transmitters after 34 years of operation.
While it was extremely painful for the company it also “fast tracked the digital transformation to social and digital platforms,” according to Reyes.
The independent news outlet has grown its digital audiences, for example its news channel has 14 million subscribers on Youtube. Overall it has increased its audience from previously, however, while revenue is “significant” from the online platforms, it is still “well below” the previous broadcast revenue.
As the organisations fast tracked its transformation to digital delivery there were several key challenges:
- How to get everyone to buy into the digital mind set from the old broadcast mindset… to make digital services available, pushing content immediately. Digital is now where we break the news first, there is always an audience ready to consume content.
- Still not enough revenue so we are working with Youtube to expand… no more geoblocking… for the recent elections we are needing to reach regions, so we partnered with education institutions to get our content to them
- News literacy campaign… a campaign to fight disinformation, partnering with fact checking organisations. It aims to help to educate young people who spend time on social media
- Regain public trust: connect with the public to help them become smart users of information, truth seekers.