We were tempted to add our two cents’ worth about Anak TV personality Ted Failon’s ridiculous waltz with the Quezon City Police Department (QCPD) and the Department of Justice. But his case and all possible angles had already been feasted upon ad nauseam in the media. The tragic scenario could not have happened at a more inopportune time. Failon was helping Anak TV stage a celebrity golf tournament to help raise funds for the advocacy, a project that will have to be shelved momentarily in deference to his grief.

Television is abuzz these days and not because of Failon alone.

It is in a mild frenzy because election fever has descended overnight.

Airtime sales are up. Roxas, Villar, Legarda, Lacson, Binay and to a certain extent, Gordon, are suddenly dominating our screens fiercely competing with shampoo and detergent commercials. The questions raised are: Who will get Anak TV personality Sarah Geronimo’s endorsement deal? Does she wield more magic than Charice Pempengco?

Chatter Street also forks into the Korina Sanchez alley whose engagement to presidential wannabe Mar Roxas, undeniably front page material, has been eclipsed by the Failon story. A consistent topnotcher in Anak TV studies, Sanchez is among the more consistently thorough and focused broadcasters that we know. We wonder if this trait will find use in Palace affairs in future.

TV 5 is officially local free TV’s youth and kiddie station, by virtue of its enormous number of program offerings for the under 18. Even other stations acknowledge it. The new managers made the risky move to reformat itself into a Pied Piper of children and the ploy has thus far worked. Their ratings are competitive and people, young and old, have taken notice.

Comes now a report that the new owners have offered handsome early retirement packages for the senior staff who are heftily paid. The report also says that there is a substantial number of old hands who bit the offer. Other stations are now watching with bated breath if the changing of the middle guards will shake the station further or break it altogether.

Changes, changes

A perennial favorite from the Kapamilya family, Game KNB? morphed into a more glitzy, techie and wackier edition but viewers soon found that the reformatting, despite the bigger pot prize, was only a wise reaction to the economic crunch. The cash prizes are far smaller; the prize packages, gone. Lunchtime and all the discomfiture, squinting and grimacing somehow do not go together. One also misses the old infectious music that viewers have become accustomed to.

Another Anak TV landmark, on the Kapuso channel this time, seems to be losing steam. The enduring Art Angel’s recent editions had become a tad lethargic despite Tonypet Gaba’s outstanding presence. The story book section has dragged the once pulsating program to a languid pace. Considering it is a show that peddles art and teaches kids how to do art, the occasionally feeble drawings and the lackluster animation leave so much to be desired.

When ABS-CBN assigns a long evening prime time slot for daily gossip and show biz news, it acknowledges that we have become a race that can easily transform what is inconsequential into something sensational and newsworthy, never mind if it is about what some celebrity stuffs in her bag or why another cried during a press con. We await what psychologists and sociologists will make of this unprecedented broadcasting move and its effect on the population.