I saw in Korina’s show this morning that DZMM is now the number one channel on cable (not just on radio but on television cable). This one’s for the books, or some sort of a record, because television is a visual medium and DZMM is radio, it doesn’t have visuals except for headshots and medium shots of the radio anchors and sometimes, live streaming of video using 3G phone (grainy but really real-time), but it has the most watched shows on cable. I think I know why.
(Photo credits: Name of photographer not indicated. Radio News: The Navy Wants 4,000 Radio Operators. From www.allposters.com under the terms of use of its free-service for blog use. Used for here for educational and non-commercial purposes. )
It has the widest network of regional correspondents in the Philippines and the most well-distributed pool of reporters and correspondents metro-wide compared to other tv news programs; its correspondents are in every nook and cranny, in every cliff and riverbed, and they just call in all of a sudden while they’re breaking the news; even at 2:00 am or 3:00 am they have correspondents and reporters who are awake, even the graveyard shift priest anchor in the radio booth receives breaking news of some shooting incident somewhere at 3:00 am. That means that every minute, they have new news stories, they don’t repeat their stories. That’s my theory on why it’s the most-watched (how can you compete with that); and the second reason, I think, is…. (in a visual medium where the most watched channel is not that visual, you’ve got to do some thinking, and the second reason I think is):
The radio anchors. The basis I think for putting the regular radio anchors ( the DZMM talents and not the politicians who buy block time for their radio program, I don’t watch politicians), or the standard for choosing the radio anchors is, I think, their WIT, SENSE OF HUMOR, their broadcaster’s voice (volume and quality; nobody’s mumbling or squeaking there), and their PERSONALITY. In fact, in dire situations, when they don’t have a guest or a co-host, or a reporter to break news, each of them can hold fort or hold a program for two hours straight, on their own, UNSCRIPTED, no prompters, just relying on their wit, their stock knowledge of what’s going on around them, the inside stories from their sources, all unscripted. How many can do that, enthrall an audience, for two hours straight, with nothing in their hands, and just relying on their wit? That’s what I mean. The energy is high. Each has a life force in him/ her worth watching even if it’s coming from a small inset screen within a screen. Either you have it or you don’t, that’s how it goes. Each, a character; they have many stories inside of them bursting to come out.
