Joseph Francia: ‘Television is alive and well’
By Cristina DC Pastor
Joseph Francia looks back on his career and glimpses a television executive whose more than three decades’ work in broadcast media was shaped by significant events and crises.
In 1990, he was a young project manager for ABS-CBN Foundation who rushed to the scene of the earthquake in Baguio to lead the effort to fundraise and work with local government units to distribute donations.
This would be followed by the momentous Pinatubo eruption in Pampanga and the massive flooding in Ormoc in Western Leyte, a succession of disasters too enormous for the Philippine government to handle. For Joseph, it was a close-up view of the aftermath of devastations, and it tested his mettle as project manager for the foundation.
“I was there in a time of multiple disasters in succession,” he said in an interview with The FilAm.
In his early 20s, this was followed by a stint Radio and Regional Radio and TV operations, setting up stations across the Philippines as part of the nationwide expansion of a then resurgent, post-EDSA ABS-CBN.
Some 31 years later, Joseph is now with GMA Network (ABS-CBN’s fiercest rival for years) as First Vice President and Head of International Operations.
GMA did not happen right away, he said. After a two-year fellowship at Monash University Business School in Melbourne Australia, he worked in an e-commerce business that required more travel and opening new media markets in Indonesia, Mexico, and other locations. He was invited to join GMA by this time with his track record of starting media operations and seeing them through.

He remains a media professional who is now navigating the impact of social media on television as well as the viewers’ response to changing platforms and content. The rapid rise of social media over the last 10 years has forced changes on television, print, and media as a whole. For example, viewing platforms are now reduced to handheld devices and short-form content heavy on celebrity gossip and images is a staple. He witnessed “media disruptions over changing habits and more competition for attention,” noting such shifts among Gen Z, millennials, and younger viewers.
“The loss of franchise of ABS-CBN in 2020 added another layer of disruption,” he said. “There was loss of jobs, businesses, which was unfortunate but it also gave birth to opportunities.”
“I was a little divorced from local reality,” he said. “I was looking at it from the lens of how they will continue with their line of business. They had an international business as we do. It wasn’t chaotic. But we saw an opportunity to try to make the most of a difficult situation for the industry in general.”
He disclosed that when GMA needed content, there was content available through the ABS-CBN library. That paved the way for an opportunity for collaboration.

What started as a licensing partnership with ABS-CBN “led to other forms of collaboration,” he said. In the international front, GMA and ABS-CBN forged a partnership for GMA’s international channels (GMA Pinoy TV, GMA Life TV, and GMA News TV) to be available on ABS-CBN’s iWantTFC platform.
It brought the two famously fierce rivals into a full-blown cooperation over programs such as “It’s Showtime” starring Vice Ganda and Anne Curtis. The noontime variety show is produced by ABS-CBN and aired by GMA Network. A press statement from the networks hailed it a “historic collaboration.”
“TV is alive and well,” declared Joseph. “People are not looking only at the big TV screens in living rooms as we did before. There are other screens like laptops and cell phones. You can watch TV on multiple screens. Like any programmer, we had to be on multiple platforms, making sure content is available, relevant, and consumable through multiple devices. TV is not dead. TV is just everywhere you have a screen to watch content with.”
Steady presence during the pandemic
The three-year pandemic is another obstacle that GMA, now on its 75th year, has managed pretty well without overextending itself. Joseph said GMA has prided itself as a cautious broadcast network, almost “conservative to a fault.”
“We survived the pandemic through cost efficiency and creativity,” he said. “We find ways, even without the pandemic, to do more with less. It is good management that has shielded us from many crises.”
He added it is their commitment to GMA’s corporate purpose to enrich the lives of Filipinos everywhere with “superior entertainment and the responsible, unbiased, and timely delivery of accurate news that has seen us through.” As GMA Pinoy TV celebrates its 19th Anniversary this August, he said GMA International will continue to champion the best in the Filipino through their “Home of the Global Pinoys” campaign.
Meeting Minnie
Joseph met future wife Minnie Francisco when they were both working at ABS-CBN. He was then managing Radio operations. Minnie, who worked in the next building, by his humorous recollection, “gatecrashed” his birthday party because all her friends were invited and she wasn’t. “I thought this girl had mojo,” he recalled. When he met an accident in 1997 in Laoag City where he was working to open a TV station, it was Minnie he phoned first. Joseph and Minnie wed after he recovered. They have two children, Ella, 21, and Benjamin 17. With Minnie back in school for her master’s degree in History at the University of the Philippines, he said tongue-in-cheek how he now supports three students in the family.
