GMA Network Inc. said Wednesday it is investing up to P1.5 billion to roll out digital terrestrial television service this year.
“We will be launching our digital terrestrial TV technology—a product that we believe is better than what our main rival has introduced to the market,” GMA Network Inc. chairman Felipe Gozon said during the company’s stockholders’ meeting.
Gozon said the company would invest between P1 billion and P1.5 billion to roll out DTT technology within the year.
He said its DTT setop box would be “very much cheaper” compared to rival ABS-CBN Corp. “considering that the people cannot afford very expensive devices.”
Rival ABS-CBN in February 2015 launched its DTT setop box called “mahiwagang black box,” which costs P1,999 per unit.
The Lopez-led network sold 1.2 million setop boxes as of end-March.
Gozon said GMA Network was studying whether they would offer three or four digital channels.
The Philippines adopted Japan’s Integrated Services Digital Broadcast-Terrestrial standard for digital TV migration from analog TV. Besides Japan and the Philippines, other countries using ISDB-T are Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay and Costa Rica.
The National Telecommunication Commission earlier said the country would shut off analog TV by 2020.
GMA Network reported a net income of P1.01 billion in the January-to-March period, up 148 percent from P408 million in the same period last year.
Consolidated revenues from all platforms rose 30 percent to P3.9 billion in the first quarter from P3.01 billion in the same period last year.
Revenues from regular advertising increased 32 percent in the first quarter to P3.57 billion, while political advertising revenues hit P640 million in the first three months, up 6,710 percent from P9 million in 2015.
The network expects a full-year net income of P3 billion in 2016, up from last year’s P2.13 billion.