City Quezon City Channels Analog: 27 (UHF) Owner GMA Network Inc. | Branding Citynet Television 27 Affiliations Silent Founded August 27, 1995 | |
DWDB-TV, UHF channel 27, was a television station in Metro Manila. Owned by GMA Network Inc., it was the first UHF station operated by a major network in the Philippines. It was primarily operated as an independent station, but also spent periods as a music channel and as an affiliate of GMA's secondary network Q (now GMA News TV). Its studios were located at the GMA Network Center in Quezon City.
History
DWDB-TV signed on for the first time on August 27, 1995, under the on-air brand Citynet Television 27 (or just Citynet 27). The station was programmed like an independent station—GMA intended Citynet 27 to be its main outlet for imported programming (particularly from the United States), freeing up slots in GMA Network's schedule for more domestic productions. Aside from an English dub of the Hispanic telenovela Ka Ina, the only locally produced program on the station was Citynet Television News, a flagship TV news show produced by GMA News and Public Affairs.
However, by 1999, the costs of operating the station in this format were becoming too high for GMA. As a result, DWDB was turned into a music channel under the interim branding EMC, the Entertainment Music Channel—which was also the country's first locally operated music channel. A few months later, GMA reached a deal with Asian broadcaster STAR TV to allow DWDB to be a carrier of Channel V Philippines, which took effect December 19, 1999. GMA had already aired selected Channel V programming from its international version (which made the former VJ's and Filipino descented Trey Farley and Joey Mead familiar to viewers of DWDB). This arrangement did not last long—a stake in GMA was recently purchased by the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, who already owned MTV Philippines through the Nation Broadcasting Corporation and its parent company MediaQuest Holdings. This conflict of interest, along with the increasing competition from the MTV affiliated network, led to the channel signing-off on July 25, 2001.
Programming would return to DWDB in November 2005, as the channel became a repeater of DZOE 11—which served as the flagship for GMA's new national network QTV (Quality Television, later renamed to just Q, now GMA News TV). GMA had reached an agreement with its owner, religious broadcaster ZOE Broadcasting Network, to allow GMA to handle programming for the station, in exchange for providing upgraded facilities for the broadcaster and airing ZOE-produced programming in QTV's lineup. DWDB's UHF signal had the advantage of easier to receive in the southern areas of Metro Manila, especially in the metropolitan cities of Makati and Pasay.
This practice was discontinued in 2007, as DWDB's signal was vacated for use in trials of digital television .
Last February 2013, GMA started its digital test broadcasts, simulcasting both GMA-7 and GMA News TV-11 using the Japanese ISDB-T digital TV platform.