In 2004, the Philippines had 225 tv stations, 369 AM broadcast stations, 583 FM broadcast stations, ten web radio stations, five shortwave stations and seven million newspapers in circulation.
On June 13, 1946, James Lindenberg, an American engineer called the father of Philippine TV, began assembling transmitters and set up Bolinao Electronics Company. Three years later, he was the first to apply to the Philippine Congress for a license to set up a television station. He was forced to venture into radio broadcasting instead due to the lack of raw materials and tight import regulation after 1948. The effort by Lindenberg to set up a television station did not go to ruin.
Judge Antonio Quirino, the brother of Elpidio Quirino the President of the Philippines at the time, was trying to get a license from Congress that would allow him to set up a TV station. He acquired a 70 percent interest in BEC because of this, which gained him partial ownership of a television franchise. Following the names of its new owners, Aleli and Judge Antonio Quirino, he changed BEC's name to Alto Broadcasting System. Quirino was able to gain help from RCA through the intervention of Gray.
Before the first broadcast, Quirino began importing 120 television sets through a mortgage of 60,000 pesos from the owner of Joe's Electric, who, in turn, was the first to be given the right to sell tv sets in the region. Eventually, on October 23, 1953, with the launch of ABS 'DZAQ-TV Channel 3, Quirino represented the first official television broadcast in the Philippines. Although ABS was able to scoop up 52 advertisers for the premiere broadcast, it was tough to trade spots for daily programming since it was more cost-effective for advertisers to purchase radio ad spots. When the channel failed to display any new features, theater plays were brought to TV.
The very first play on Philippine television, called Cyrano de Bergerac, was created in 1953, only about a month after the first telecast, by Father James Reuter SJ, who had radio and television training. This is how many famous radio shows, such as Tawag ng Tanghalan, Kuwentong Kutsero, and Student Canteen, began their lives on TV. A radio maker, he started making television sets. The high taxes previously placed on foreign television shows were abolished in 1958, which made American shows less costly than live programming created locally.
In April 1955, entrepreneurs Eugenio and Fernando Lopez founded Chronicle Broadcasting Network as a radio medium in 1956. CBN bought ABS from Quirino in the same year and combined the two firms into Bolinao Electronics Corporation. The Lopez brothers managed the ABS and CBN television channels with the creation of DZXL-TV Channel 9 on April 19, 1958.
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