PLDT Inc. chairman Manuel Pangilinan said Monday the dismissal of 100 employees at TV 5 Networks Inc. last week will be the last round of cost-cutting measures designed to bring back the broadcast company to profitability by 2019.
Pangilinan, whose group controls TV 5, confirmed that “pink slips” were given Friday to about 100 people working for TV 5.
“We’re closely monitoring the situation but that’s the last, that’s the last of the cost-cutting for TV 5,” he said.
“It had to be done. The choice is shut down the station or keep it alive. We want to save the many [employees] and I know that few had got to be sacrificed,” Pangilinan said.
Pangilinan said the employee layoffs, which started in 2015, was “always a painful experience.” The company reported having around 1,000 employees last year.
“So there will always be comments on how it was executed, the terms under which the separation are being offered. So you know, we can only do the best we can under the circumstances because TV 5 continues to show losses, albeit the losses are starting to decline starting 2016,” he said.
Pangilinan said TV 5 would be left with around 600 employees, because any additional layoffs would mean “cutting it to the bone and that’s not good.”
Pangilinan said he was hoping that TV 5, the country’s third biggest broadcast network, would return to profitability by 2019.
“I think those losses will decline starting 2017. I would say 2019 [is the target]. We reduce debts starting this year 2017, so by 2019 we will be [debt free],” he said.
Pangilinan said TV 5 was now revamping its content strategy to compete with other stations.
“I think the news will stay, substantially as it is. The sports content will still be there and we’re expanding the sports content. Then there will be some entertainment shows that we will be putting in,” he said.
“It’s not a shutdown situation for TV 5. I think it’s a selective kind of programming. I think it’s the only way for TV 5 to compete. The viewing habits for video are slowly changing, so we want to move in the direction rather than stay with the legacy where we are not competitive,” Pangilinan said.
He also shot down revival of talks to acquire GMA-7. “There’s been no discussions,” he said.
MediaQuest Holdings Inc., a unit of PLDT Group, bought TV 5 in 2009 from the Cojuangco family for P4 billion, and acquired MPB Primedia of Malaysia, a TV5 major block-timer, for $16 million.
Media Quest is owned by the Beneficial Trust Fund of PLDT where Pangilinan sits as chairman and chief executive.