AMCARA Broadcasting Network is a Philippine

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

broadcast company. The company is located in Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights,

Quezon City Quezon City (, ; fil, Lungsod Quezon ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read in Filipino as Kyusi), is the most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 2,960,048 people. It was foun ...

. The company is majority-owned by the heirs of Arcadio M. Carandang, one of the pioneers of Philippine television who worked for

ABS-CBN ABS-CBN (an initialism of its two predecessors' names, Alto Broadcasting System and Chronicle Broadcasting Network) is a Philippine commercial broadcast network that serves as the flagship property of ABS-CBN Corporation, a company under L ...

. AMCARA owned and operated a number of UHF television stations in the provinces affiliated with

ABS-CBN Sports and Action ABS-CBN Sports and Action (stylized as ABS-CBN Sports+Action or simply S+A or S and A), was a free-to-air television network based in Quezon City. It was owned by ABS-CBN Corporation with some of its programs produced and licensed by ABS-CBN ...

(S+A, formerly

Studio 23 Studio 23 (officially Studio 23, Inc. and previously AMCARA Broadcasting Network) was a Filipino television network owned by ABS-CBN Corporation. The network was named for its flagship station in Metro Manila, DWAC-TV and carried on UHF ch ...

). On January 5, 2022, its former UHF frequencies (channel 23 and 43) were assigned by the

National Telecommunications Commission The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC; fil, Pambansang Komisyon sa Telekomunikasyon) is an attached agency of the Department of Information and Communications Technology responsible for the supervision, adjudication and control over a ...

to Aliw Broadcasting Corporation (for channel 23) and Swara Sug Media Corporation (for channel 43).

History

1994–1996: Early years

AMCARA Broadcasting Network, Inc. was incorporated on April 11, 1994.

DWAC-TV DWAC-TV, Channel 23, was the flagship UHF station of Philippine all-sports television network ABS-CBN Sports and Action (S+A), a fully owned subsidiary of ABS-CBN Corporation. Its studios and transmitter are located at ABS-CBN Broadcasting C ...

was acquired from Ermita Electronics Corporation in July 1996, which initially owned the frequency of the station that began airing in May 1992 from a densely populated commercial area in Quezon City with a rebroadcast of

MTV Asia MTV was a pan-Asian music pay-television channel which launched on 3 May 1995 as a standalone pay television channel. It was owned by Paramount Networks EMEAA. History MTV Asia was officially launched on 3 May 1995 as a 24-hour English-languag ...

, then telecasting from the STAR TV platform. It was later showing Channel refeeds from 1994 onwards as MTV made the decision to split from STAR and form its own satellite TV portal in Asia.

1996–2010: Studio 23 era

Three years later in 1996, MTV Asia returned to the Philippine airwaves after establishing a new regional base in Singapore. ABS-CBN was picked as the broadcast arm of MTV Asia in the Philippines at the time, and DWAC-TV Channel 23 began test broadcast in September 1996 with rebroadcast of the new MTV Asia from Singapore. A month later, it launched its own programming under the station name

and adopted the slogan "Premium Television". The station initially ran MTV rebroadcast in the day and its own shows at prime time. It also ran for 24 hours, but financial limitations forced it to sign off at 3AM every day. That has been the broadcast arrangement ever since. Five years later, MTV Asia acquired a new local UHF frequency and Studio 23 formally became a full station, adopting rebroadcasts of its in-house cable channel Myx to fill in the void left by MTV Asia, and came up with intensified programming led by the popular reality TV game show ''

Survivor Survivor(s) may refer to: Actual survivors * *Last survivors of historical events Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Survivors, characters in the 1997 ''KKnD'' video-game series * ''The Survivors'', or the ''New Survivors Found ...

'', and several top rate US shows like '' 7th Heaven'', '' Will and Grace'' and '' Charmed'', among others. By 2004, Studio 23 opened its doors to Taglish programs and adopted a new slogan, "Kabarkada Mo!". Previous to this, the station was already running its own English newscast, " News Central", from 1999 to 2010, effectively replacing the network's ''

The World Tonight ''The World Tonight'' is a British current affairs radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4, every weekday evening, which started out as an extension of the 10 pm news. It is produced by BBC News and features news, analysis and comment on domes ...

'', previously on

DWWX-TV DWWX-TV, Channel 2, was the flagship VHF station of Philippine television network ABS-CBN. The station was owned and operated by ABS-CBN Corporation with its studio and transmitter located at the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center, Sgt. Esguerra ...

Channel 2 which had moved to a cable-only newscast on ANC, the cable news channel of ABS-CBN. Studio 23 also geared its mostly young viewers to trends in the tech world with "Digital World". With the intensified Taglish presence, Studio 23 now had the nightly Tagalog gag newscast '' Wazzup Wazzup'', the interactive youth talk show '' Y Speak'', and several others. It even provided support shows to its highly successful local reality programs ''

Pinoy Big Brother ''Pinoy Big Brother'', more popularly known by its abbreviated title ''PBB'', is the Philippine version of the ''Big Brother'' reality game show franchise. The word '' Pinoy'' in the title is a colloquial term for the Filipino people. Is a Phil ...

'' and '' Pinoy Dream Academy'', both acquired from

Endemol Endemol B.V. was a Dutch-based media company that produced and distributed multiplatform entertainment content. The company annually produced more than 15,000 hours of programming across scripted and non-scripted genres, including drama, reality ...

of the Netherlands and are big hits on Channel 2.

Expansion to sports programming

In 1998, ABS-CBN, through its sports division,

ABS-CBN Sports ABS-CBN Sports was a sports division of the Philippine media conglomerate ABS-CBN, which aired some of the notable sporting events in the Philippines. ABS-CBN Sports began in 1998 as the main broadcaster for the network-backed basketball leagu ...

, used mainly Studio 23 to highlight its own professional basketball league, the

Metropolitan Basketball Association The Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA), or Metroball, was a Professional sports, professional basketball league in the Philippines that ran from March 7, 1998, to July 26, 2002. History The MBA played its first game on March 7, 1998, at t ...

(MBA). The league adopted the home and away format used by the American professional league the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...

(NBA). (It however sold the franchise of the league after incurring heavy losses.) It marked the network's first serious foray into sports programming. Later, that would be added by acquiring broadcast rights to the collegiate leagues UAAP and

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...

and the PBL. Today, it carries a wide variety of local sporting competitions, many of which involved neighborhood schools and showcasing budding Filipino sports talents.

2010–2019: Part of ABS-CBN

The date was brought forward and

ABS-CBN Corporation ABS-CBN Corporation is a Filipino media company based in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. It is the largest entertainment and media conglomerate in the Philippines. It is a subsidiary of Lopez Holdings Corporation which is own ...

's acquisition of a 49% controlling stake in AMCARA Broadcasting Network ended on March 22, 2010. On July 12, 2010,

announced the formation of its broadcast television subsidiary, officially named Studio 23 Network. The AMCARA name will no longer be used as a terrestrial broadcaster as well as blocktime agreement, though existing AMCARA Broadcasting Network studios will keep the name. On October 23, 2010,

officially announced that the integration of their UHF TV network operations as well as AMCARA Broadcasting Network has been completed and the two entities will merge into one under the name of Studio 23 Network and will operate under the business name of

, Inc. On January 17, 2014,

ceased its commercial broadcast.

Studio 23 off-air, rebranding as S+A, and divestiture

On January 18, 2014,

, stylized as ABS-CBN Sports+Action or S+A, launched as a

Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...

free-to-air sports and action channel. It was managed by

's sports content division. The channel occupied the former channel space of its predecessor,

, a young adult-oriented network. On January 24, 2019, ABS-CBN divested its 49% stake in AMCARA to one of the majority shareholders Rodrigo V. Carandang (who is also the chief of

TV5 Network TV5 Network Inc., commonly known as TV5, is a Philippine media company based in Mandaluyong, with its alternate studios located in Novaliches, Quezon City. It is primarily involved in radio and television broadcasting, with subsidiaries and ...

engineering). ABS-CBN has also stopped paying blocktime fees to AMCARA, based on their 2019 third-quarter financial report. Carandang was named Chairman, while former GMA Network vice-president Jose Antonio Veloso was named as president.

2020: Franchise renewal and block-time issues

On May 5, 2020, ABS-CBN Sports and Action went off-air, together with

DZMM DZMM (630 AM) Radyo Patrol was a commercial news/talk radio station broadcasting from Quezon City, Philippines, serving the Mega Manila market. It was the flagship station of the Radyo Patrol Network owned by ABS-CBN. The station's studio was l ...

and MOR due to a

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...

order from the

(NTC) after its legislative franchise expired on May 4. On June 30, 2020, during the joint hearing made by the House Franchises and

Good Government Good government is a normative description of how government is supposed to be constituted. It has been frequently employed by various political thinkers, ideologues and politicians. Thomas Jefferson and good government Thomas Jefferson often r ...

committees, ABS-CBN President and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

, Carlo Katigbak made their speech, reiterating the block-time arrangement between ABS-CBN and AMCARA, saying that was done under the standard commercial agreement. Later on,

Cavite Cavite, officially the Province of Cavite ( tl, Lalawigan ng Kabite; Chavacano: ''Provincia de Cavite''), is a province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon region in Luzon. Located on the southern shores of Manila Bay and southwest ...

7th District representative and Senior Deputy Majority Leader,

Jesus Crispin Remulla Jesus Crispin "Boying" Catibayan Remulla (born March 31, 1961) is a Filipino lawyer, politician, and broadcaster currently serving as Secretary of Justice since 2022. He previously served as the representative of Cavite's 7th district from ...

, called the block-time arrangement, "

usufruct Usufruct () is a limited real right (or ''in rem'' right) found in civil-law and mixed jurisdictions that unites the two property interests of ''usus'' and ''fructus'': * ''Usus'' (''use'') is the right to use or enjoy a thing possessed, direct ...

" and a dummy relationship.

2022–present: Former frequencies assigned to different companies

On January 5, 2022, its former UHF frequencies (channel 23 and 43) were assigned by the NTC to Aliw Broadcasting Corporation (for channel 23) and Sonshine Media Network International (for channel 43).

References

{{Reflist, 2 1994 establishments in the Philippines Television channels and stations established in 1996 Mass media companies of the Philippines ABS-CBN Corporation Privately held companies