ABS-CBN to NTC: Require GMA to explain own digital TV signal loss

MANILA, Philippines – ABS-CBN Corporation explained that interruptions during the airing of noontime show Eat Bulaga – which carries the popular #AlDub segment – is due to how GMA transmitted its digital TV signals.

In its letter to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on September 24, ABS-CBN said the it “has nothing to do with the signal loss” during the airing of Eat Bulaga.

The Lopez-led network further explained that its black box ABS-CBN TVPlus receives whatever digital TV transmissions it can pick up, and that ABS-CBN has no control over how other channels transmit their digital TV signals.

ABS-CBN has also asked the NTC to require GMA Network to explain the intermittent transmission of its own digital TV signal.

This is in response to 5 complaints of GMA viewers against ABS-CBN for allegedly disrupting the reception of GMA’s highly-rated noontime show Eat Bulaga.

ABS-CBN said “the complainants suffered from a mistaken notion of what a receiver is and what it cannot do, and effectively side-tracked the more telling issue and that is, the program interruption was due to GMA’s own signal loss.”

“Signal loss due to GMA was confirmed because, not only were signals of other broadcasters during the time in question detected and received by the TVPlus box, [but] upon careful monitoring, ABS-CBN actually recorded an episode of signal loss from GMA leading to the signal loss experienced by the TVPlus box,” it added.

ABS-CBN said that “the box itself cannot be a culprit in the signal loss since it is nothing more but a receiver, configured to detect, receive, and broadcast all available digital signals at any given time regardless of the provider and so long as the provider is reliably transmitting such digital signals.”

“It appears, therefore, that requiring only ABS-CBN to respond to each consumer complaint about GMA’s loss of digital signals is insufficient to properly educate the public about the reason for the loss of such digital signals,” it said.

Moving forward, ABS-CBN also said it would be ideal for NTC to forward all complaints about the reception of GMA’s digital signal by ABS-CBN TVPlus boxes to both ABS-CBN and GMA. – Rappler.com