Paolo Bediones has reached the point of no return. He’s done with hosting beauty pageants, a job where he has been the go-see guy for the past many years. After bidding GMA 7 good-bye, Paolo is tackling a job he has never dreamed he’d be doing someday.He’s turning TV5 news anchor and will conceptualize shows and develop talents for his new home network.
It’s time to move on, and move up.
“It’s time for me to pass the baton (in hosting beauty pageants) to whoever,” he says.
His new job requires Paolo to do much more than interviewing beauty queen wannabes at an average of 20 to 25 pageants a year.
It demands that he see the big picture — where the industry is, where it’s headed for, what it needs. And he swears it couldn’t have come at a better time.
“My career (in GMA 7) was a hybrid,” he recalls. “I was not a reporter, not a newscaster. I was not a singer, not actor. When singers and actors started to host shows, lumiit ang mundo ko.”
He started asking himself, “Five years from now, will I be waiting for the next (TV) franchise, hoping they will give it to me?”
The answer, as we all know by now, is a big no. Along came the TV5 offer, no longer as host. The offer was for the juicy posts of main news anchor and program executive rolled into one.
It’s something Paolo never thought of, even in his wildest dreams, especially when he was still with GMA 7. But it’s there, about to happen before his very eyes.
A few weeks from now, Paolo will take a bow as anchor of TV5’s news programs with the just-as-seasoned Cheryl Cosim.
It’s an exciting first for the debuting news anchor.
“It’s a step up,” relates Paolo. “And it’s my top priority. This is a first in my 12 years in the broadcast industry.”
That’s why Paolo wants to hit the ground running.
“I’m taking a crash course on what it takes to be a journalist from Ma’am Luchi (Cruz-Valdez), head of TV5’s News and Public Affairs Department. I have to learn how to write news reports, although I’ve been doing this already,” reveals the eager student.
Paolo is also soaking up on the ABCs of investigative reporting in his new show, USI (Under Special Investigation), which premieres last Sunday, March 14, on TV5 and airs every Sunday thereafter
USI is a one-hour program that puts a controversial person under the magnifying lens. Paolo makes the program his own by giving it that reality show flavor.
Thus, the pilot episode will see its two guests — presidential bets Dick Gordon and JC delos Reyes, doing what people haven’t seen them do so far. Paolo asked Gordon, a Red Cross volunteer, to take his blood pressure and tell him what his blood type is.
Delos Reyes, on the other hand, will go to an Olongapo nightclub where he has never been before, and discuss his plans before the sweet painted ladies he meets there.
The mere thought of following paper trails for USI makes Paolo’s day.
What’s much more fun, though, is giving deserving fellow TV workers that much-needed break.
Now that he calls the shots, Paolo enjoys giving what he calls “diamonds in the rough,” on and off cam, the chance to join the network and grow with it.
“I audition singers and hosts,” he relates. “We’ll be getting a lot of talents. Ang daming fresh graduates ngayon. If they want a shot (at the job), we’ll give it to them. You have to start somewhere, you know.”
If this makes other networks fear TV5 will pirate their talents, Paolo will take it with the widest smile he can give.
This only means networks are learning to value their talents more.
He would love to see contractual workers getting regular jobs; new talents getting the attention they deserve.
“My heart belongs to fellow industry workers who deserve to be protected,” says Paolo.
He doesn’t care how many years it will take for his dream of seeing TV5 standing head-to-head with the industry’s giants to come true. At the end of the day, longevity counts more.
“Look at the products of reality shows these days,” he points out. “After three months or one season, you find out that they can’t sing, dance and host. They entered the reality show as contenders, not as hosts, singers or actors. Walang training, walang (talent) development.”
Yes, he signed a three-year contract with TV5. But he knows he may be spending those three years just planting the seeds that will make the station grow into an industry giant. He can’t tell when he will reap the fruits of his labor.
“I aim to professionalize the industry,” he declares. One way is by going back to tradition, where the script, not ad-libbing was king.
“Why did a fantastic sitcom like Abangan ang Susunod na Kabanata die even if it had good acting, writing and directing? Because people threw scripts away in favor of adlibs,” he observes.
TV5, Paolo vows, will return to the way things used to be on TV and introduce technology to make the shows more accessible.
“We’re entering a new age on TV,” he observes.
Paolo knows it’s exciting, but it will be an uphill climb. He’s willing to start the climb, even if it takes him a long time to reach the peak. At 36 come March 17, he found the best birthday gift ever, and a calling he’s willing to turn his life around for.
DECISIONS
2 years ago
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