Tuesday, October 10, 2007 Wenceslao: Coverage of Pacquiao-Barrera bout By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
I WATCHED on TV the Manny Pacquiao-Marco Antonio Barrera bout in Mandalay Bay Sunday morning in the comfort of home, although I had to shell out P500 to my Dream satellite provider. To enjoy the fight better, I allowed the neighbors in. In the community in Minglanilla where I now live, big gatherings do not happen often.
But watching major sports events on TV was always a social affair in our old house in Sitio Kawayan where I grew up. Not all residents had TV sets early on and when these items got cheaper because of the flood of China-made products, only a few families had cable TV connection. So boisterous friends ended up gathering in front of our TV set.
Of course, cable TV connections have since expanded in Cebu, but in this Pacman era, even that would not guarantee freedom to watch the fights of this Filipino icon.
Now, major TV networks like ABS-CBN, Solar Sports and GMA shell out oodles of money to snag exclusive rights to show Pacquiao bouts, then clog the coverage with commercials.
This made the previously untested pay-per-view setup a viable option. If you have those boxes installed, your cable or satellite provider can now sell you a commercial-free viewing of the coverage of major sports events, the most saleable being Pacman fights. Those with money to spare go pay-per-view and escape the ads pummeling on free TV.
Pacman bouts also popularized other modes of escape, mostly for a fee. Movie theaters in malls offer the fight for widescreen viewing. Many establishments do so, too, with food and drinks served on the side. Last Sunday, the Pacquiao-Barrera tussle was shown, also for a fee, in the gymnasiums of Talisay, Minglanilla and other areas.
We are thus seeing the full commercialization of the coverage of Pacquiao fights, which does not look good considering the ideal: people allowed unhampered appreciation of Pacman’s international exploits while it lasted.
Funny, but those who cannot afford to pay commercial-less viewing of the fight now turn to a “primitive” gadget, the radio.
So those of us in our house were among the few fortunate souls who enjoyed fully the Pacquiao-Barrera bout. I measured from time to time the magnitude of that enjoyment by shifting from pay-per-view to GMA’s coverage and discovered it was wide. The commercial-full coverage lasted until around 4 p.m., hours after the actual fight ended.
I found out later that attempts were also made by GMA in Manila to insist on its exclusive right to report “blow by blow” the Pacquiao-Barrera tussle on radio. I actually thought early on that dySS anchor Gerry Auxilio was joking when he noted the monitors that filled the station supposedly to find out those illegally covering the boxing event.
Worse, the radio coverage done by Tagalogs left much to be desired, as attested by Superbalita’s Troy Ciar. One of the annotators either did not have enough knowledge of boxing or was biased against Pacquiao. Listening to the radio coverage, Troy said, made me think Barrera was winning. What happened was the opposite, though.
In a way, the flak that GMA got for its coverage was deserved, although the same thing can be said of the previous coverage of Pacquiao fights done by Solar Sports and ABS-CBN. But then, this is really what the capitalist system is all about, isn’t it?
