For years, GMA Network looked like the great exception in Philippine television: the dominant free-to-air broadcaster, the perennial ratings leader, and a company whose dividends could make even indifferent investors pay attention. Yet its 2025 annual report suggests that the broader malaise afflicting television is no longer merely an industry abstraction. It is showing up in GMA7’s own numbers—most clearly in the slow erosion of its core recurring television advertising business, the economic engine that still powers the company.
That matters because television is not collapsing in one dramatic lurch. It is being worn down by habit. Filipino audiences are spending more time online, on social platforms, and with streaming and short-form video, even as broadcasters continue to command mass reach. Dentsu’s 2025 media trends report says 90% of Filipinos use the internet daily and 82% use social media every day, while broader industry analysis points to digital media taking an ever larger share of attention and advertising. The old television model—large audience, predictable ad budgets, dependable recurring sales—is not dead. But it is no longer the default.
GMA’s 2025 results show both the resilience of its franchise and the fragility of the old economics. Consolidated revenue rose to about ₱18.12bn in 2025, up from ₱17.56bn in 2024, while net income climbed to about ₱2.2bn from roughly ₱2.07bn a year earlier. On the surface, that looks like a recovery. But the company itself supplied the more important footnote: without election-related placements, consolidated revenues from regular and recurring sources would have been down by about 5%, and the flagship channel’s advertising revenue from regular customers would have posted a single-digit decline. That is the telling line in the annual report. It suggests that 2025 was not a clean revival of the core business, but rather a cyclical reprieve purchased by politics.
The dependence is easy to see in the composition of revenue. Advertising still accounted for more than 90% of GMA’s revenues, at about ₱16.57bn in 2025, meaning the company remains tied above all to the fortunes of the domestic ad market and the pricing power of linear television. Consumer sales improved, and digital revenues continued to grow, but the basic architecture of the business remains recognizably old-fashioned: a broadcast titan trying to evolve while still being funded chiefly by television commercials. In that sense, the general decline in TV is indeed true for GMA7—not because the company has stopped leading, but because even the leader can no longer rely on regular TV advertising to grow in the old way.
The longer revenue arc reinforces the point. GMA’s annual revenues were far higher earlier in the decade: around ₱22.45bn in 2021 and ₱21.56bn in 2022, before dropping to ₱18.64bn in 2023, ₱17.56bn in 2024, and then only partially recovering to ₱18.12bn in 2025. This is not the trajectory of a thriving growth medium. It is the shape of a business that has already passed through its peak-profit moment and is now settling into a lower, more contested normal. GMA remains the strongest incumbent in Philippine free TV, but it is increasingly a strong incumbent in a weakening medium.
What does that mean for shareholders? Above all, it means that dividends are likely to become more constrained. GMA’s payout record has long been one of the stock’s chief attractions, but the direction of travel is unmistakable. Cash dividends fell from ₱1.10 a share in 2023 to ₱0.60 in 2024 and ₱0.50 in 2025, while the 2026 declaration was cut again to ₱0.40 a share, equivalent to roughly ₱1.95bn. Total dividend payout has likewise shrunk sharply from the lofty levels seen in 2021–2023. The company still adheres to a policy of paying out at least 50% of earnings, but the absolute pool from which those dividends are drawn is smaller than it once was.
There are other reasons for caution. Operating expenses rose to about ₱15.54bn in 2025, up nearly 5% from 2024, driven by higher production spending and administrative costs. Pension liabilities also rose sharply in the year, and cash balances declined, leaving less room to maintain generous payouts in the face of softer recurring revenue. In effect, a broadcaster that once could distribute cash lavishly out of abundant television earnings is now being asked to fund content, digital transition, employee obligations, and shareholder returns from a less forgiving earnings base.
And yet this is not a story of imminent distress. The consolation—an important one—is that GMA’s balance sheet remains sturdy. The company’s current ratio improved to 2.25:1 in 2025 from 1.83:1 the year before, while short-term loans fell to about ₱1.48bn from ₱3.72bn. Its debt-to-equity ratio stood at roughly 0.11:1, and interest coverage rose to 21.32 times, indicating ample ability to service borrowing. Total liabilities also declined year on year. That does not solve the strategic problem of a maturing TV market, but it does mean GMA can absorb industry change from a position of comparative strength rather than desperation.
Nor should one ignore the company’s enduring advantages. GMA still commands the country’s largest free-to-air audience, with a combined net reach of 87.5%, or roughly 63m viewers, and it remains the ratings leader across the key Nielsen measures cited in its annual report. Its digital properties are growing, its online video footprint is substantial, and its brand remains deeply embedded in the habits of mainstream Filipino audiences. If any traditional broadcaster in the Philippines can manage a long glide from linear dominance to hybrid relevance, it is probably this one.
Still, investors should be clear-eyed about the trade-off. GMA7 is no basket case; it is a profitable market leader with a strong balance sheet and enduring mass reach. But it is also increasingly evident that the general decline of television is true for GMA7 as well, especially where it hurts most: in the recurring, non-political TV advertising stream that has long underwritten its dividends. The company may continue to pay handsomely by the standards of the local market. But the era when television effortlessly financed those payments looks to be fading. In broadcasting, as in so many aging industries, strength now lies less in growth than in how gracefully one manages decline.
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Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes and is not investment advice. Figures are taken from company disclosures and exchange data; valuation ratios include the author’s calculations based on cited inputs.
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