The closure of CNN Philippines is a big blow to Filipino researchers
The now-defunct CNN Philippines should have celebrated its ninth anniversary on air last March 16. However, the network permanently shut down its operations last January 31 after incurring massive financial losses over the years.
CNN Philippines was able to cultivate a reputation as a producer of high-quality programming, from news and entertainment to culture and sports. It even helped organize debates during the past election cycles.
Apart from the fact the country lost one of its more reliable news sources, CNN Philippines‘ closure also caused loss of jobs. This mirrors the trend in the United States where many media organizations have laid off workers either as a consequence of its closure similar to what happened when Buzzfeed News ended its operations or in an effort to cut costs like what Vice Media and Vox Media has been doing.
The demise of CNN Philippines shows the continued dependency of media organizations on advertising revenue for their survival. And since its contents are predominantly in English, it can be argued that CNN Philippines has a fairly-limited target audience. This in turn affected their ratings which needless to say did not make the network too appealing for advertisers.
On a more personal note, I have long cited content from CNN Philippines for my works as a teacher and researcher. Hence, I am really sad that their website and digital platforms have been deactivated. I hope those are not deleted permanently and can be made available again eventually when the legal matters have been sorted out. If not, those are lost to history and it would be a big loss for everyone especially this era of disinformation.
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