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Twitter conversations on streaming service shows grew 184% in 2020

2020 was a year where everything changed, but as the old adage goes “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Fans of K-Pop groups, K-dramas, and local celebrities continued to talk about their idols and shows online via Twitter despite not having in-person concerts and movie experiences that year due to pandemic restrictions.

With the dearth of in-person entertainment last year, more people gravitated towards talking about entertainment online, with Twitter reporting 678 million “entertainment-related conversations” in Southeast Asia during the first quarter of 2020, according to a press release.

“2020 was a year of unexpected and unprecedented change in the entertainment landscape, but Twitter continued to play its part in keeping conversations thriving,” said Carl Cheng, head of entertainment partnerships, SEA and Greater China, in the press release.

“Even as parts of the world look towards recovery and easing of lockdown measures, entertainment will certainly remain a key part of our lives. As this year promises new reality TV, local dramas, award-winning films and more in 2021, Twitter is excited to see where the next big escape will take us,” he added.

Philippine conversation about celebrities, local TV, and movies dipped in 2020, but conversations about shows available on streaming platforms increased throughout the region, with 184% growth (Q3 2020 vs. Q3 2019) in the Philippines, according to Twitter.

Generating a lot of buzz in the country last year were Academy Awards Best Picture Parasite by Bong Joon-Ho, and locally, the sitcom The House Arrest of Us and romantic drama blockbuster Hello Love Goodbye, both of which star Kathryn Bernardo.

Conversations about shows on streaming platforms also recorded big spikes in the number of related conversations in the third quarter (Q3)of 2020 in particular concerning Netflix, iWant, and iflix.

“This clearly shows that streaming services played an integral role during the extended periods of social distancing,” the company said.

The Sunday noontime show ASAP Natin ‘To continued to drive conversations on Twitter despite the closure of its mother network, ABS-CBN, in July 2020 (it has since found new channels online to present the show). The Philippine adaptation of the Korean drama series Descendants of the Sun also trended on Twitter as people “shared their sentiments seeing their fave K-drama with a relatable local spin,” the company said.

Fandoms also continued the conversations about their favorite love teams and groups online, with the fans of the “MayWard” love team (actors Maymay Entrata and Edward Barbers) and the P-Pop (Pilipino Pop) group SB19 some of the more notable examples. — Zsarlene B. Chua

US comedy legend Cloris Leachman, 94

CLORIS LEACHMAN — WIKIPEDIA.ORG

LOS ANGELES — American actress Cloris Leachman, who won eight Emmys for her work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and other television programs as well as an Academy Award for The Last Picture Show, died on Wednesday at the age of 94, her representatives said.

Ms. Leachman’s publicist said in a statement that the actress died of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California.

“It’s been my privilege to work with Cloris Leachman, one of the most fearless actresses of our time,” her manager, Juliet Green, said in a statement. “There was no one like Cloris. With a single look she had the ability to break your heart or make you laugh till the tears ran down your face. You never knew what Cloris was going to say or do and that unpredictable quality was part of her unparalleled magic,” Mr. Green added.

Ms. Leachman, who appeared in three of Mel Brooks’ comic movies, kept acting regularly well into her 90s. She was a contestant on Dancing With the Stars at age 82 and appeared in the 2019 reboot of the comedy series Mad About You.

Two films that she made in 2019 and 2020 have yet to be released.

Mr. Brooks on Wednesday called her “insanely talented.”

“She could make you laugh or cry at the drop of a hat… Every time I hear a horse whinny I will forever think of Cloris’ unforgettable Frau Blücher,” Mr. Brooks wrote on Twitter, referring to her role in Young Frankenstein.

Ms. Leachman grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and studied under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York, where Marlon Brando was a classmate. Starting in the late 1940s, her early jobs included working on stage with Katharine Hepburn in As You Like It, as well as small roles in movies and live television dramas.

One of her first regular jobs was playing the mother on the popular Lassie show in the late 1950s and television would provide many of Ms. Leachman’s greatest successes. She won best-supporting actress Emmys in 1974 and 1975 for playing the nosy landlady on the popular Mary Tyler Moore Show, which led to a two-year run for Leachman in her own spin-off series, Phyllis.

She also won Emmys for playing cranky Grandma Ida on Malcolm in the Middle in 2002 and 2006, as well as roles in the drama Promised Land in 1998, a Screen Actors Guild variety show in 1984, a 1975 appearance on Cher’s variety show and A Brand New Life, a 1973 television movie.

She was nominated 12 other times and also won a Daytime Emmy in 1972.

Ms. Leachman’s movie work also was distinguished, highlighted by The Last Picture Show in which she played Ruth Popper, the emotionally crippled wife of a small-town football coach who has an affair with one of his players. As director Peter Bogdanovich predicted, she won an Oscar for the role.

Ms. Leachman made an impression in three of Mr. Brooks’ movies, playing comically villainous characters in Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety and Madame Defarge from A Tale of

Two Cities in History of the World: Part 1.

Age did little to slow Ms. Leachman. In 2008, she became the oldest contestant ever — and a fan favorite — on Dancing With the Stars and followed that up with an appearance on the reality show Celebrity Wife Swap.

Ms. Leachman took a light-hearted and unpredictable approach to life. A lifelong vegetarian, she was in her 70s when she appeared nude — but with her body painted with fruits and vegetables — on the cover of Alternative Health magazine in 1997.

Asked in 2010 how she managed to keep professionally busy at her age, Ms. Leachman told the New York Times, “I don’t like that word ‘busy’ because that’s not how I live at all … When I do work, it’s not work; it’s great fun and exciting and fresh.”

Ms. Leachman and director-producer George Englund married in 1953 and divorced in 1979. They had five children. — Reuters

SMC starts work on road linking Skyway 3, NLEX Connector

SAN MIGUEL Corp. (SMC) has started work on its 1.2-kilometer road project that will link the newly opened Skyway Stage 3 to the NLEX (North Luzon Expressway) Connector being built by Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC), its top official said.

“The connection, part of the detailed engineering design of the Skyway 3 project, can be completed within 24 months or less as soon as the ROW (right of way) issues with the landowners are resolved,” SMC President and Chief Operating Officer Ramon S. Ang was quoted as saying in an e-mailed statement.

He said the company would start working in areas that are “unobstructed.”

“We’re also already committing the funds needed to buy the ROW properties, so hopefully, these issues will be resolved the soonest,” he added.

The NLEX Connector Road project is the eight-kilometer toll road linking the tail of NLEX Harbor Link Segment 10 at C3 Road in Caloocan City to Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Sta. Mesa, Manila.

MPTC’s NLEX Corp. and the Department of Public Works and Highways are currently working on the first five-kilometer section of NLEX Connector from Caloocan Interchange, C3 to España.

The NLEX Connector project is expected to reach España “by yearend,” according to NLEX Corp.

Once completed, the project is expected to cut travel time from NLEX to South Luzon Expressway from two hours to about 20 minutes.

MPTC is the tollways unit of Metro Pacific Investments Corp., one of three key Philippine units of Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being Philex Mining Corp. and PLDT, Inc.

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin

Fiennes, Mulligan unearth treasures in The Dig

CAREY MULLIGAN helps unearth a trove of ancient treasures in The Dig but one excavation stunt terrified the actress during filming — ensuring co-star Ralph Fiennes did not suffocate while buried in mud.

Based on the book by John Preston, the Netflix film, released on Friday, recounts the 1939 Sutton Hoo archaeological discovery, described by Britain’s National Trust as a find that “would revolutionize our understanding of early England.”

Set at the onset of World War Two, it follows Edith Pretty, a widowed landowner in the eastern county of Suffolk, as she employs amateur archaeologist Basil Brown, played by Fiennes, to excavate mounds on her property both suspect are Viking burial grounds.

Instead, Brown unearthed the shape of a 27-meter long Anglo-Saxon ship with a burial chamber filled with treasures.

Ms. Mulligan, known for Far From the Madding Crowd and The Great Gatsby, said she had not been looking for another period drama role but was moved by the script and keen to work with Schindler’s List actor Fiennes.

That came with great responsibility. In one scene, Brown is buried under thick mud when a trench he is excavating collapses. Pretty, played by Ms. Mulligan, uses her bare hands to dig him out. “(I felt) terror. Ralph didn’t want to use a stuntman, which I totally get, but it just did leave me with the terrible task of trying to stop him from suffocating,” Ms. Mulligan told Reuters.

“I was in charge of his face. I felt like if I’d been in charge of any other part of his body, I would have been fine. But I kept on saying to (director) Simon (Stone), please don’t put me in charge of his mouth … I’m going to mess it up and he’s not going to be able to breathe. So it was really stressful.”

Mr. Fiennes came out unscathed.

Adding a sense of authenticity, Mr. Stone asked the crew to bury mock-up treasures to replicate the excitement around the original discovery.

“We buried the treasure that they find and we hid it from them … And so they went on a treasure hunt,” he said. “It took hours and we were just rolling and rolling and rolling and sometimes there’d be long periods where no one found anything.”

Mr. Fiennes actually unearthed some medieval pottery while digging on set outside London.

“It was like a bit of clay,” he said, adding he hoped audiences would be inspired by the film’s small details.

“We live in a world of mass production … some of these (Sutton Hoo) treasures … are stunning pieces of craftsmanship. And that is a cause for wonder.” — Reuters

Cold storage demand, e-commerce to drive logistics — JLL

THE demand for cold storage facilities from the roll-out of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines and the rise of e-commerce during the pandemic is seen to drive up the logistics sector for the next 10 years, a real estate services firm said on Thursday.

“Rising cold storage and growing e-commerce landscape would drive take-up upwards… We anticipate that more interest would be in the logistics sector, (and this) would further drive the market moving forward,” JLL Manila’s Head of Research & Consulting Janlo delos Reyes said during a briefing on Thursday.

Data from JLL showed that logistics, driven by cold storage demand and the growth of e-commerce, would bring in gross leasable area of 3.5 million square meters (sq.m) by 2030, up from 1.5 million sq.m in 2020.

In JLL’s previous outlook in August, the real estate services provider said that addressing the increasing demand for better facilities in the country’s logistics space could translate to around 160,000 sq.m per annum of new demand.

“We’re also seeing a lot of diversification in the logistics space. We’re seeing an increased interest for data centers who can support this interest and take up for logistics space in the Philippines,” Mr. Delos Reyes said.

During the briefing, JLL also gave its overall outlook on residential, retail and the hospitality segments.

For the residential segment, it projected that developers would focus on existing portfolios, and undertake a limited number of project launches. It added that lease and sale markets would recover at a slower pace.

Although the retail market would see a growing presence of retailers and mall operators online, JLL said that retailers would reassess footprints and optimize margins, which would lead to a subdued demand in the sector.

For the hospitality sector, JLL said that travel restrictions in the country due to the global health emergency would prolong low occupancy levels.

Recent data from JLL showed that the influx of returning overseas Filipino workers for the holidays and the re-opening of hotels for staycations improved demand in the fourth quarter. But occupancy growth remained weak on a year-on-year basis. — Angelica Y. Yang

BPI posts lower profit in 2020 on increased loan loss reserves

BANK OF THE Philippine Islands (BPI) saw its net income drop by 25.7% last year as it set aside bigger loan loss provisions, with the coronavirus pandemic continuing to affect the economy.

The Ayala-led bank’s net profit went down to P21.4 billion in 2020 from P28.8 billion in 2019, it said in a disclosure to the local bourse on Thursday.

This translated to a return on equity of 7.7%, down from 10.97% in 2019, while return on assets stood at 0.98%, lower than the prior year’s 1.38%.

BPI attributed the income decline to higher provisioning for credit losses on expectations that the economy’s slowdown would lead to higher nonperforming loans (NPL). Its loan loss reserves stood at P28 billion last year, five times as much as the P5.6 billion it set aside in 2019.

Meanwhile, its NPL ratio stood at 2.68%, higher than the end-2019 level of 1.66%, based on its annual report for that year. Its NPL coverage ratio was at 115.2% last year, up from the end-2019 level of 102.1%.

BPI’s revenues climbed by 10.5% year on year to P101.9 billion in 2020. Its net interest income grew by 10.2% to P72.3 billion on the back of a 5.8% increase in its average asset base and a 14-basis-point rise in net interest margin to 3.49%.

Non-interest income also went up by 11.1% from a year ago to P29.7 billion on bigger gains from securities trading. This, even as income from fees fell 5% to P19.5 billion.

The bank’s operating expenses were almost steady at P48.1 billion last year, but its cost-to-income ratio improved to 47.2% from the 52.4% seen in 2019.

BPI saw a 4.6% drop in its loan portfolio to P1.4 trillion last year “as a result of a slowdown in corporate lending.” The main contributors to the decline were the mortgage and microfinance loan segments, it said, which expanded by just 6.6% and 5.7%, respectively.

Meanwhile, deposits with the bank edged up by 1.2% year on year to P1.7 trillion. The bank said the 16.6% growth in current account, savings account or CASA deposits partially offset the 33.2% decline in time deposits. BPI’s CASA ratio stood at 79.6% last year, while its loan-to-deposit ratio was at 82%.

BPI’s assets grew by 1.3% to P2.2 trillion at end-2020. Total equity was a P279.8 billion, translating to a common equity Tier 1 ratio of 16.2%, up from 15.17% in 2019 and a capital adequacy ratio of 17.1%, also higher than the prior year’s 16.07%.

Shares in BPI closed unchanged at P83.15 apiece on Thursday. — BML

Cannes Film Festival postponed due to COVID-19

THE 2021 edition of the Cannes Film Festival will be postponed until July because of the coronavirus pandemic, organizers said on Wednesday.

Last year’s event was canceled and replaced by a low-key event in October showcasing short films but without the A-list movie stars, directors, and producers.

The festival will take place from July 6-17, the organizers said in a statement, two months later than planned.

Hollywood superstars normally flock to the Mediterranean town’s “Croisette” promenade for the two-week extravaganza, the world’s biggest cinema showcase and a major market for the industry.

The palm-fringed town has been a subdued version of its normally glamorous self since the coronavirus outbreak. Many of its swankiest hotels are closed, as are its restaurants and bars. — Reuters

Cirtek gets PSE approval for listing of preferred shares

CIRTEK HOLDINGS Philippines Corp. has secured approval from the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) for the listing of its preferred shares, the listed company said on Thursday.

In a disclosure, the listed company said the PSE on Jan. 20 permitted the listing of its $20 million US-dollar denominated preferred B2-B shares issued to Camerton, Inc. by way of private placement.

The preferred shares will be listed with the PSE on Feb. 2, it added.

“The company has complied with all post-approval requirements for the listing of the shares subject of the private placement transaction,” the disclosure said.

“On December 2, 2020, the Board of Directors of Cirtek approved the initial dividend rate of the preferred B2-B shares at 6% per annum,” it added.

In early January, the $20 million US dollar denominated preferred shares of Cirtek was one of the offerings mentioned by PSE President and Chief Executive Officer Ramon S. Monzon that were in the pipeline for 2021.

“We have a number of follow-on and stock rights offerings in the pipeline, which include $20 million and $250 million dollar denominated securities (DDS) offerings of Cirtek Holdings Philippines Corp. and Cebu Air, and the P5-billion stock rights offering (SRO) by AC Energy Philippines,” Mr. Monzon said in a statement in early January.

CIrtek Holdings is the holding company of Cirtek Electronics Corp. and Cirtek Electronics International Corp., and is engaged in the business of manufacturing semiconductor packages, among others.

On Thursday, Cirtek shares at the stock exchange were flat at P7 per piece. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

2020 job losses about four times the tally of 2008 financial crisis

WORK HOURS equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs were lost in 2020 due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, about four times the job losses stemming from the economic slowdown triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007-2009, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said.

According to the seventh edition of the ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the World of Work published on Jan. 25, the ILO said the latest estimate was “approximately four times greater than the number lost during the 2009 global financial crisis.”

“New annual estimates confirm that labor markets around the world were disrupted in 2020 on a historically unprecedented scale. In 2020, 8.8% of global working hours were lost relative to the fourth quarter of 2019, equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs,” the ILO report stated.

The reduced work hours were attributed to rising unemployment and underemployment due to the economic effects of COVID-19. The ILO estimated the loss of full-time jobs at 114 million.

The working hours lost resulted in a decline in worker income of 8.3%, equivalent to $3.7 trillion, or 4.4% of global gross domestic product.

ILO Director-General Guy Rider said 2021 might signal recovery but the state of the labor market remains uncertain. He added that any recovery in the employment market this year could be uneven. 

“The signs of recovery we see are encouraging, but they are fragile and highly uncertain, and we must remember that no country or group can recover alone,” he said in a statement Monday. — Gillian M. Cortez

News roundup: Animated GoT, environmental Iron Man

HBO MAX CONSIDERING ANIMATED GAME OF THRONES
LOS ANGELES — The hit Game of Thrones fantasy franchise may be expanded to animation in a new series for streaming service HBO Max, The Hollywood Reporter said on Wednesday.

Executives at HBO Max, owned by AT&T, Inc.’s WarnerMedia, have started holding meetings with writers about a possible animated drama series for an adult audience, the publication said. An HBO spokesperson had no comment on the report.

Game of Thrones, based on novels by George R.R. Martin, became a global phenomenon and won 12 Emmy awards, including the top prize of best drama series.

The show ended its run on HBO in 2019. Executives have been working to develop new programming in the franchise as they compete with Walt Disney Co., Netflix, Inc. and others vying for streaming viewers.

HBO is currently working on a spinoff series called House of the Dragon, which will take place 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones. That series is expected to debut next year. — Reuters

IRON MAN DOWNEY LAUNCHES FUNDS IN ENVIRONMENTAL FIGHT
AS INVENTOR Tony Stark, Hollywood actor Robert Downey, Jr. transformed into superhero Iron Man. Now the Oscar nominee is taking action against environmental threats to the planet. Downey is looking to sustainable technology to tackle issues like deforestation and microplastics.

The Iron Man and Avengers star, 55, announced on Wednesday he was launching venture capital funds, aiming to “accelerate groundbreaking technologies that are addressing the world’s largest environmental challenges.”

Downey’s FootPrint Coalition, founded in 2019 and made up of “investors, donors and storytellers committed to scaling technologies to restore our planet,” has already invested in companies like Ynsect, which breeds mealworms, and Cloud Paper, which makes bamboo toilet paper, among others.

Now he wants to “quickly mobilize more people and catalyze more capital.”

“There’s groundbreaking technologies we’re going to vet and … keep doing what we’re doing, finding the best in class and accelerate scaling them up,” Mr. Downey told Reuters. “We feel (the funds) is a move towards just a little bit of democratization in this usually very exclusive space.”

FootPrint Coalition Ventures will have an early- and late-stage fund, with a $5,000 quarterly subscription fee and minimum one-year subscription.

It says it wants to invest in food and agriculture technology, sustainability-focused consumer products and services, energy and transport, materials and industrial tech, education and media and advanced environmental solutions.

“Rather than raising money infrequently from very large anonymous institutions … we do the opposite,” Jonathan Schulhof, who will co-lead FootPrint Coalition Ventures, told Reuters. “We raise money constantly because it’s constantly an opportunity to tell the story and activate and mobilise the audience.”

Mr. Downey, who also took part in a panel about the Arctic at the virtual World Economic Forum on Wednesday, narrates short videos made by his creative team on the coalition’s site, talking about topics like aquaculture and deforestation. “I always feel that if you have great content and the community feels that, the audience grows, that helps us with our access to deals and then we get better outcomes,” Mr. Downey said. — Reuters

DoTr to test Dito CME’s e-payment platform Autopay

THE Transportation department said it would start testing in the “next few weeks” the automated fare-collection system developed by Dito CME Holdings Corp., the communications, media and entertainment arm of the Udenna Group.

Dito CME led a walk-through of the proof-of-concept (PoC) of Autopay on Jan. 25 at the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX), the department said in a statement on Jan. 26.

“Ang importante ay maipakita sa inyo (What’s important is to show to you) that we have a solution, that it works for the convenience of the riding public,” Renato Castañeda, chief relationship manager of DITO CME, was quoted as saying.

The department said the internal walkthrough was to test the key features of the Dito CME’s Autopay “before the PoC is sampled to a small group of public commuters in the next few weeks.”

Dito CME’s automated fare-collection system features an e-wallet, which can be used for cashless payments, and a kiosk machine where passengers can purchase their trip tickets.

“It speeds up the long and tedious manual process to just a few minutes,” the Transportation department noted.

The department said it is finalizing the national standards for the automatic fare collection system.

“Once finalized, the national standards shall enable an open and competitive environment among multiple automated fare collection system providers,” it added.

On Jan. 4, the department said it would be rolling out a cashless transit card payment system this year for use in all modes of public transportation nationwide.

“The use of this technology in the transit system promises a more secure payment system, improved passenger convenience, and helps eliminate card-issue and management costs for transit operators,” it said in a statement. — Arjay L. Balinbin

FedEx to relocate HK-based pilots to San Francisco to avoid quarantine

FREIGHT CARRIER FedEx Corp. will temporarily relocate its Hong Kong-based pilots to San Francisco because it expects the Asian financial capital to establish strict 14-day hotel quarantine requirements for crew, it said in a memo to pilots.

The company said it did not think it was appropriate to subject Hong Kong-based crew members to extended periods of isolation, preventing them from seeing their families after finishing a trip.

“While we don’t know what the rule will state, when it will precisely take effect, or how long it will last, we do not want unknowns to prevent us from taking action on what we understand may likely occur,” FedEx System Chief Pilot Robin Sebasco said in the memo seen by Reuters, which was first reported by the South China Morning Post on Thursday.

A FedEx spokeswoman said it was developing steps to comply with potential quarantine measures in a way that prioritized the safety and well-being of staff while allowing it to continue to operate to Hong Kong.

The memo said the company would cover hotel costs and out-of-pocket expenses for pilots and their families in San Francisco, while continuing to pay their housing allowances in Hong Kong.

However, a Hong Kong-based FedEx pilot said on condition of anonymity that there were flaws in the plan. Many pilots have children in school in Hong Kong, he said, and regardless, it will be difficult for families to live in hotel rooms for weeks or months at a time.

Hong Kong’s biggest airline, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., on Monday warned passenger capacity could fall by 60%, cargo capacity by 25% and cash burn would rise if the new quarantine arrangements were put in place.

Cathay, in an internal memo seen by Reuters, requested volunteers among its crew who could fly for three weeks, followed by 14 days of quarantine and 14 days free of duty, adding that it would be a temporary measure and not required for all flights. — Reuters

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