Manila audience a toss up between GMA, ABS-CBN

GMA Network Inc., one of the country’s largest television companies, kept its TV ratings lead in Urban Luzon for the month of August, but close rival ABS-CBN Corp. said it was still preferred nationwide, including key areas like Metro Manila, separate statements on Friday showed.

GMA, which uses data from ratings provider Nielsen TV Audience Measurement, got 40.4 percent of households in Urban Luzon. That’s compared with 33.4 percent for ABS-CBN and 6.3 percent for TV5.

Urban Luzon accounts for 77 percent of all urban TV households in the entire country. GMA, however, did not provide any data for Mega Manila, another area where it traditionally led ABS-CBN Corp. in ratings. It has not been reporting figures for Mega Manila, which covers the capital district and nearby areas, since July this year.

A company spokesperson claimed GMA was still leading in Mega Manila. However, details were no longer included this time around since it was already considered part of Urban Luzon.

ABS-CBN, which uses data from Kantar Media, also claimed to have cornered a 47-percent audience share across “urban and rural homes in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao” for August this year. This was 14 points higher than GMA, it said.

ABS-CBN added it got half of the total urban and rural Filipino households for the advertiser-coveted primetime block (6 p.m. to 12 midnight). ABS-CBN said it got a 50 percent share in the primetime block against 31 percent for GMA.

ABS-CBN also claimed an unusual lead in Metro Manila. The broadcast company cornered 37 percent of viewers in Metro Manila last month, against GMA’s 33 percent. For Balance Luzon, ABS-CBN got 49 percent against GMA’s 34 percent, data from Kantar showed.

ABS-CBN said it maintained wide margins in Visayas and Mindanao.

Nielsen data, according to GMA, has a nationwide sample size of 3,500 urban and rural homes. Kantar Media uses a nationwide panel size of 2,610 urban and rural homes, ABS-CBN said.