GMA Network News

GMA Network News is the former late-night English newscast of GMA Network from January 6, 1992 to October 30, 1998 and became the first Filipino-language late-night television newscast from November 2, 1998 until July 30, 1999 on weeknights and from July 6, 1996 until June 30, 2002.

Background

Early years

The 30-minute weekday edition first aired on January 6, 1992 as a replacement for GMA Headline News with Tina Monzon-Palma (who then moved to ABC as the Chief Operating Officer and anchor of The Big News and later moved to ABS-CBN in 1998 as the anchor of The World Tonight) and Leslie Espino (who replaced Jose Mari Velez on the newscast after his death). The first team of anchors was composed of Espino, Vicky Morales (who also had a brief stint as the third anchor on Headline News), Marga Ortigas, GMA reporter Jessica Soho and two new recruits from rival stations-- Mari Kaimo (from PTV) and Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel (from IBC). Espino & Soho would bow out of the newscast after a year, leaving the four of them being the main anchors.

On April 7, 1997, the newscast was given a new set, new theme music, and a sleeker opening ident and graphics package. In the opening ident, Kaimo gave a sneak peek of the night's headlines with clips from the specific news items, after which, Mike Enriquez (and later, GMA continuity announcer Al Torres) provided the voice-over, "From the award-winning GMA News and Public Affairs team, this is GMA Network News..." to introduce the newscast and its anchorpersons. Rachel del Mar became the program's new weather girl, who would always end the segment (then retitled "GMA Weather Center") with her signature close, "This is Rachel del Mar, your all-weather friend." However, Kaimo, Hontiveros and Ortigas eventually left the newscast as well on May 29, 1998. The former would move to ABS-CBN (to host The Correspondents and the Studio 23 (now ABS-CBN Sports and Action) newscast News Central), while Hontiveros ran for party-list representative in Congress and Ortigas at the other hand, currently as an Al Jazeera correspondent.

Enriquez-Morales era

On June 1, 1998, Saksi anchor Mike Enriquez joined Morales as co-anchor, replacing Kaimo as the main male anchor and female anchor Hontiveros. Network News became the first Filipino newscast to do stand-up news delivery inspired by American television network newscasts. GMA marked a history on making an idea of putting Filipino language on late-night newscast and became the first network to completely report only in Filipino language identical to the American reporting only in English. Morales, in an interview of "Limang Dekada" in 2009, said in the mid 90's it attempted to switch the newscast to Filipino and the concept was "super radical", during that time, most TV station newscast used English language on late-night newscast from 10-10:30pm. The news department decided to try it in order how to get the response of the viewers, first was "Taglish" (a mixture of Tagalog and English) the latter said and eventually switching to Filipino on November 2, 1998 and its airtime was cut to 15 minutes. It became the first Filipino language late-night television newscast. Due to this, GMA Network News' ratings fastened to higher numbers than its rival English-language newscasts, The Big News of ABC, NewsWatch of RPN and The World Tonight of ABS-CBN and caused GMA to become the number one in the Metro Manila ratings in 2004 and in the nationwide ratings in 2011. The next year, all stations started to follow including rival network ABS-CBN's Pulso: Aksyon Balita anchored by Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon, which replaced The World Tonight which is now broadcast on the ABS-CBN News Channel and ABC's Big News, one of the last television newscasts to broadcast in English, switching to Filipino in 2004, and this was the start of a new era of airing all-Tagalog newscasts on late-night.

Enriquez used his signature close, "Thank you for trusting GMA", which became "Marami pong salamat sa inyong pagtitiwala sa GMA" (when the newscast switched to Filipino) to end the newscast. The latter closing line was also used by himself in Saksi (when he returned and Morales transferred to the said newscast in 1999 with the premiere of Frontpage: Ulat ni Mel Tiangco on the late-night slot) and on his DZBB radio program. Mel Tiangco would later use the same closing line until 2014 when Morales became the third anchor and used the same closing line as Enriquez and Tiangco on 24 Oras.

Weekend edition and final years

Meanwhile, the newscast's 30-minute weekend edition aired from July 6, 1996 until June 30, 2002, first, with Raffy Marcelo, Georgette Tengco and Gin de Mesa. They were replaced by Martin Andanar and Bernadette Sembrano on June 6, 1998 and switching to Taglish. The weekend edition also eventually switched to news delivery in Filipino at the same time on November 7, 1998 as the weekday edition did and also its airtime was cut to 15 minutes. "GMA Network News" continued to be the weekend newscast's title until 2002, even as the weekday edition gave way to "Frontpage" in 1999.

Anchors

• Leslie Espino (1992–1996)
• Jessica Soho (1992-1993)
• Marga Ortigas (1992–1996)
• Mari Kaimo (1992–1998)
• Risa Hontiveros (1992–1998)
• Vicky Morales (1992–1999)
• Mike Enriquez (1998–1999)
• Rachel del Mar (weather woman from 1996–1998)
• Raffy Marcelo (weekend anchor from 1996–1998)
• Gin de Mesa (weekend anchor from 1996–1998)
• Georgette Tengco (weekend anchor from 1996–1998)
• Bernadette Sembrano (weekend anchor from 1998–2002)
• Martin Andanar (weekend anchor from 1998–2002)

Awards

• Nominated, Best News Program - PMPC Star Awards for Television (1995)

See also

• GMA News and Public Affairs
• List of shows previously aired by GMA Network