''The PBA on NBN'' and ''The PBA on IBC'' were brandings used for presentations of

Philippine Basketball Association The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is a men's professional basketball league in the Philippines composed of twelve company-branded franchised teams. Founded in 1975, it is the first professional basketball league in Asia and is the se ...

games produced by Summit Sports and was aired on Philippine

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or multichannel video programming distributo ...

s National Broadcasting Network and

Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) is a Philippines, Philippine State broadcasting, state broadcaster owned by the Government Communications Group under the Presidential Communications Group (Philippines)#Presidential Communicat ...

, respectively in 2003. ''The PBA on NBN'' and ''The PBA on IBC'' succeeded PBA's longtime TV partner '' Vintage Television''.

Overview

The consortium of NBN and IBC took over the league's TV coverage after winning the TV rights over the league's longtime TV partner Vintage Television on November 8, 2002. The league considered the NBN-IBC bid because they can provide a wider coverage of the games not only in Metro Manila but also throughout the provinces. The consortium signed an agreement to the PBA to cover the games for three years, paying the league for almost P670 million. NBN began airing the PBA games with the opening of the

2003 PBA season The 2003 PBA season was the 29th season of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). Board of governors Executive committee * Jose Emmanuel M. Eala (Commissioner) * Casiano Cabalan Jr. (Chairman, representing Barangay Ginebra Kings) * Manue ...

on February 23, 2003, while IBC first aired the PBA games on March 16, 2003. The first week’s ratings of the games over NBN were negligible when compared to those of IBC which had telecast the games for several years, while even the two networks combined ratings were way below those of

Viva TV Viva may refer to: Companies and organisations * Viva (network operator), a Dominican mobile network operator * Viva Air, a Spanish airline taken over by flag carrier Iberia * Viva Air Dominicana * VIVA Bahrain, a telecommunication company * ...

in 2002. The use of two networks to broadcast the PBA also led to an experiment during the first few months of the season where NBN and IBC would air separate telecasts of a game aimed at different audiences, NBN's broadcasts were more traditionally styled, while IBC's broadcasts were aimed at a younger audience, utilizing a separate pool of younger personalities. The format was eventually dropped and replaced with straight simulcasts later on in the season. Due to allegations by IBC that NBN had not paid close to 30 million pesos in rights fees, IBC stopped broadcasting PBA games at the end of October 2003. NBN would continue on until the finals of the 2003 Reinforced Conference. The PBA gave the consortium a formal notice on December 1, 2003, to settle their debts of unpaid rights fees, that reached up to P134 million, plus the P60 million penalty due to the stoppage of IBC to simulcast the league's games, else their contract will be terminated. A bid would be held for a new contract, where the Associated Broadcasting Company (now TV5 Network, Inc.) was awarded the broadcast rights for the league beginning in the 2004 season.

Commentators

Play-by-play

*Sandi Geronimo *

Mico Halili Mico Halili is a Filipino sports television personality, sportscaster and sports journalist. He is best known as the lead sportscaster for the basketball games of the PBA and UAAP. In October 2020, he became the Creative Director for sports pro ...

*TJ Manotoc *Boom Gonzalez *Carlo Del Carmen *Sev Sarmenta *Vitto Lazatin *Noel Zarate

Color

Norman Black Norman Augustus Black (born November 12, 1957) is an American former professional basketball player who played in the CBA, NBA, and PBA. He's the current head coach for the Meralco Bolts. He has since settled in the Philippines. He is also ...

* Ramon Fernandez *Jayvee Gayoso *Vic Ycasiano *Andrew Cruz *Dominic Uy *Danny Francisco *

Quinito Henson Joaquin M. Henson (born October 14, 1950), also known as Quinito Henson, is a Filipino sports analyst and television color commentator. His newspaper column, ''Sporting Chance'', has appeared in the ''Philippine Star'' since the 1980s. Self-dubb ...

* Leo Isaac * Yeng Guiao

Courtside reporters

Patricia Bermudez-Hizon Patricia Bermudez-Hizon (born September 5, 1977) is a sportscaster and television host in the Philippines. She is the current head of One Sports last January 2016 replacing Chot Reyes. She is the first ever female basketball television and radio ...

*Janelle So *Mabel Reyes *Chiqui Roa-Puno *Lala Roque *Paolo Trillo * Mark Zambrano

References