FOR over a year now, the cable television version of this weekly features and personalities’ page, A-Listed, has been airing through Piaya Network, a local cable channel that aspires to position itself as the number one tourism and events broadcasting site in Negros.
After a year of engagement, A-Listed TV has produced interviews with inspiring personalities from various fields of interests: local politics, tourism and food, the academe, festival directors, to name a few.
With a more prepared and enhanced format of coverage, also note the use of high maintenance and latest TV production requirement, A-Listed has taken its share as a good watch among the roster of local programs that caters to a wide array of lifestyle interests.
The show, together with nearly 10 locally produced Piaya originals, will undergo phases of changes in the coming months. After closing a deal with a national cable network, Piaya Network will be the first of its kind to be broadcasting in all corners of the country.
With lips sealed on the salient points of the transaction and contract, I am certain with one thing though: Filipinos around the country will get to “taste” the kind of production and TV materials Piaya is known for nearly three years now: updated, out-of-the-box, and high standard.
Tying up with this homegrown TV network allowed me to venture in a more in depth production of stories that require our people’s attention. Indeed, the more than one year of engagement is a sweet experience of running after interviews and producing stories that are worth investing our time, even our weekends with.
Recently, we started shooting for local plugs in preparation of the major shift in programming. Apart from A-Listed, programs we can look forward to watching are “TNT,” shortcut for “Taste N’ Travel,” “L Show,” “Real Talk” with veteran broadcast journalist Elsie Jolingan, “Project Negros,” and a reality program documenting the crazy adventures of true to life brothers in meeting challenges pitched from social media, among other programs.
With this roster of programs, I can’t help but feel excited that our local spots and various places of interests to be highlighted and relegated to a national level.
“TNT,” for example, is hosted by former local ABS-CBN talent Shannan Gonzales. The mestiza beauty shall be checking on out of this world recipes from all corners of Negros. Definitely, it’s a roller coaster gastronomic adventure, highlighting the many undiscovered stomach fillers in the island, proving that Negros is more than sugar and the products that are made from sugarcane.
Veteran entertainment host and local artist John Arceo will head a “pack of brothers” in a late night program about girls, relationships and all those “complicated but very exciting things that come in between.”
“Project Negros,” on the other hand, is the network’s local business arm that shall feature living legacies of prominent personalities and families in Negros. The show will dock insights on how to sustain growing businesses and expand on a national level. This is very fitting as Negros Occidental, as we know, for many decades has etched many local names and brands to a national and even international market.
Apart from A-Listed, I will be pioneering a short documentary program to be billeted as “Piaya Documentaries.” It is the pilot program of the Bacolod-based network to highlight the plights, aspirations and daily struggles of our Negrense brothers in the Island Region.
This is the first venture of Piaya Network in the field of documentary production, a direct manifestation of the channel’s deep desire to become a venue for local development through exposing the real situation and issues in the grassroots.
With longer time allotted, the team shall cover all angles of the story, thus, showcasing more truths in actual daily events of our subjects. We have widen our scope and so our stories: the odd jobs people take to survive, the stories of ambitions of our young children, the deepest seas and highest mountains in the island, all these we will explore and cover.
PD, to be aptly called in short, shall pioneer the way we look at things through TV storytelling. It also aspires to solicit generous support from government and public sectors to change the lives of our characters. This will also serve as a public service arm of the growing cable network, a fitting stance as Piaya Network will boldly telecast on a national signal.
Surely, the story telling of “Piaya Documentaries” will be as sweet as our local sugarcane and in many ways, as stinging as the bees we grow in many Negrense communities, proving that “truth really hurts.”
Piaya Network is the brainchild of young director and emerging local film producer Anthony Leo Aguirre. Strongly supported by the understanding and deep love of his parents, Leo vouched to “bring Negros and its stories closer to every Filipino home.” And in a shorter time, the dream of the young Aguirre will come true.