Annette Gozon-Valdes on KathNiel, Barda and Kapuso Collab Projects

Are the Network Wars a Thing of the Past? With GMA Network's continued collaborations with its former industry rival ABS-CBN, Annette Gozon-Valdes, GMA's senior vice president for programming, talent management, worldwide and support group, as well as president of GMA Films, recently weighed in on the matter during this paper's collab podcast "Meet the Press" on Spotify.

- By Nathalie M. Tomada

She said, "Siguro kaya nagkaroon ng word na war or network war is because of the fans before? Sila talaga yung nag-aaway? But in all businesses, there's competition and it can be a healthy competition. Hindi yung parang patayan, 'di ba? 'I want to see you lose, I want to see you destroyed,' it's not like that.

"Parang mas maganda nga may competition because I think competition helps. It helps boost the companies. For example, when it comes to artistas, 'di ba, (you have) Nora-Vilma (Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos), they're both popular. Those types of competitions can be very healthy and you can leverage that and use it to benefit your company."

The media executive continued, "And I think given the trends now, napaka-global ng entertainment, so, hindi na dapat tayo-tayo nag-aaway among ourselves. We can do collabs because we want to have a healthy competition naman with other countries. We also want to compete in that sense and what's a better way to compete than get all the best from the Philippines.

"Hindi naman lahat nasa GMA, hindi naman lahat nasa isang kompanya (you can't find them all in one company). Parang we get together and put together our best and yun ang ilaban natin in the international arena para maipakita natin yung galing ng Pilipino."

One of the latest collaborations between the two networks is the "Pinoy Big Brother (PBB)" Celebrity Collab Edition featuring talents from both GMA and ABS-CBN's talent management teams.