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What happens now that ABS-CBN has completely lost its franchise

Yesterday, the House Committee on Legislative Franchises has finally denied the renewal of ABS-CBN franchise. However, this does not mean that the network will no longer operate and broadcast, except on free-to-air channels.

ABS-CBN President and CEO Carlo Katigbag promised that the network will continue to find ways and means to serve its audience, despite the reduced reach.

So, what happens now?

First, all the 70+ million Filipinos on Facebook will be able to watch the livestream. The same goes for all their 9.63 million YouTube subscribers. For the past two months, the majority of viewers of ABS-CBN have been following the reports thru these two big platforms.

Second, those who are already subscribed to Sky Cable (wired) will continue to be able to watch ANC on channel 23, Knowledge Channel on channel 5, Cinemo on channel 7, Kapamilya Channel on channel 8, Jeepney TV on channel 9, O Shopping on channel 11 (although the show will end by December 2020), ABS-CBN Sports + Action on channel 17 (UPDATE – July 18, 2020: S+A channel is no longer available since May 5), Liga on channel 86, Myx on channel 23, DZMM TeleRadyo on channel 26.

OFWs abroad will also continue to watch ABS-CBN programs via The Filipino Channel (TFC). TFC has over 2.47 million subscribers worldwide as of 2011 so it should be bigger by now.

The network has a dedicated ABS-CBN Radio App which people can download for free and listen to DZMM.

ABS-CBN also ha iWant app which has over 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store as of today. It is free to download but movies and other shows are paid.

There are other ways ABS-CBN can do to expand its digital footprint. We’ve outlined six (6) of them here in a previous article.

Other options for ABS-CBN is to buy block-time from other stations like TV5 and

Here’s a complete list of all online channels of the entire ABS-CBN network.

As for all of its 11,000+ employees, ABS-CBN can technically keep all of them (except perhaps for the network engineers) as long as the network has enough viewers and advertisers. The critical key here is the advertisers.

On YouTube alone, ABS-CBN makes over Php40,000,000 a month. That, plus iWant revenues, Sky Cable subscription revenues while TFC’s Premium Online streaming service is $12.99 per month.

If ABS-CBN can sustain its viewership and advertisers until 2022, they can re-apply for a new franchise under a new set of House of Representatives. However, their frequency might not be available by then.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

7 Responses

  1. Avatar for Flewen Flewen says:

    Yes, ok Naman iyan, pero Ang tanong nga, will their competitors reach the kind of status na nagawa Ng ABSCBN to areas na since then di kayang abutin Ng mga kakompetensiya? Do these people need for more years bago sila makakasagap Ng isang istasyon na Gaya Ng abscbn?

  2. Avatar for Flewen Flewen says:

    It will still not be enough in order to cater the needs of those who lost connection to ABSCBN like those who are living from far away areas that only ABSCBN is the available station that accommodates them. KAYA ba Ng GMA iyan? Not even a single reach nagsagawa nila iyan not unless they will invest in putting up more forms of reach para sa nawalan Ng access sa tv.. Ang tanong: makuha ba nila Ang loob Ng mga viewers from ABSCBN to shift to their station? Iyan Ang malaking tanong

  3. Avatar for dri012 dri012 says:

    sa dami ng kumpanya ng LOPEZ kaya nila isustain yan.. waiting lang sila ng 2yrs pala..

  4. Avatar for Dro Dro says:

    The viewership wont make them money versus what they gain from free to air channel. They will hemorrhage money.

  5. Avatar for Dehins Uy Dehins Uy says:

    What will happen is that INC will go for their frequencies instead.

  6. Avatar for A A says:

    Yun naman pala e. Madami pa rin pagkakakitaan ang ABS CBN,

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