A free-to-air network everyone now calls the undisputed king of Philippine television isn’t exactly celebrating its victory lap, according to Nosy Tarsee’s sources.

After its longtime rival lost its franchise, this broadcaster was handed the crown on a silver platter — near-total dominance of the airwaves, the biggest audience share, and the fattest advertising pie.

On paper, it should still be printing money. Yet the numbers tell a different story.

For years, it was the investor’s sweetheart dividend play: fat yields, generous cash returns, and the comforting certainty that even a no-growth business could keep paying handsomely because its franchise was untouchable.

Investors loved the narrative. Markets, however, don’t reward yesterday’s story when today’s cash flow starts to shrink.

The latest dividend declaration — 40 centavos per share for 2026, down from 50 centavos in 2025 — looks modest, but it is the loudest signal of decline.

The payout trend is unmistakably lower: P1.45 in 2022, P1.10 in 2023, and 60 centavos in 2024, showing a multi-year reset in shareholder distributions.

The real culprit isn’t management missteps or a sudden ratings collapse. It’s the quiet, relentless power of social media dismantling the old broadcast model.

Filipinos who once parked themselves in front of the TV for primetime soaps and newscasts have migrated to TikTok, YouTube, Facebook Reels, and live streams.

Attention that used to be captured in 30-second commercial breaks is now sliced into 15-second vertical videos — algorithm-fed and hyper-targeted. Advertisers merely followed the eyeballs.

Why pay for a mass TV spot when you can reach the exact demographic on their phones at lower cost, with instant metrics and higher engagement?

The once-lucrative revenue engine of free-to-air television is being hollowed out — not by another network, but by an entire generation that no longer watches the way their parents did.

The dominant broadcaster may still own the biggest share of what remains of linear TV, but the overall pie is shrinking fast.

Social media didn’t just steal viewers; it also took the economic model that made broadcast dominance so profitable in the first place.

The dividend chart is simply catching up to reality.