PBA on ABC

*PBA on ABC*
PBA on ABC
Genre	Sports (basketball); live action
Developed by	ABC Sports
Starring	various PBA on ABC commentators
Country of origin	Philippines
Original language	Filipino (Tagalog)
No. of episodes	n/a
Production
Executive producer	Bobby Barriero
Camera setup	multicamera setup
Running time	150 minutes+;
Original release
Network	Associated Broadcasting Company
Release	February 22, 2004 –; August 20, 2008

The PBA on ABC (later renamed as The PBA on TV5) is a presentation of Philippine Basketball Association games on the Philippine television network Associated Broadcasting Company. The PBA on ABC premiered on February 22, 2004, replacing the previous broadcaster of the games, National Broadcasting Network and Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (PBA on NBN-IBC).

Overview

After the league ended its broadcast rights deal with the National Broadcasting Network and the Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation consortium after the 2003 season, the league searched for another network for its TV coverage.

In January 2004, the PBA selected the Associated Broadcasting Company to cover its games from February 2004 to February 2005, beating bidders such as Solar Sports and a group led by former Vintage Television boss Bobong Velez.

ABC hired several commentators from the NBN-IBC coverage such as Mico Halili, Quinito Henson, Paolo Trillo and Norman Black. Ed Picson was also hired by ABC, after a two-year hiatus from covering the PBA due to a fallout between him and Viva-TV in 2002.

After the 2004-05 PBA Philippine Cup, the league and the network extended the contract for the 2005 Fiesta Conference. After the contract expired in 2005, despite a low amount of money offered, the league chose ABC over Solar Sports, who had a much bigger bid than the former. ABC and the PBA then signed a three-year deal that will expire after the 2007-08 season.

ABC then decided not to join the bidding process for the 2008-09 season's PBA coverage, citing financial constraints. Solar Sports, through local network Radio Philippines Network (RPN), will be the new broadcast partner of the PBA for next season, beginning with the Rookie Draft.

After ABC had a major revamp in their programming lineup and have been rechristened as TV5 on August 9, 2008, the broadcast became known as The PBA on TV5 to reflect the network's name change. Accordingly, the 2008 PBA Fiesta Conference Finals became the last PBA event covered under the ABC name and the only PBA event that will be covered under the TV5 name.

The last game PBA aired on TV5 was the Game 7 of the 2008 PBA Fiesta Conference between the Air21 Express and Barangay Ginebra Kings.Mico Halili and Jason Webb were the commentators during the ballgame. They finally bade goodbye by doing the "Bye-bye" gestue wherein all the staff of the TV5 Sports were there including Sienna Olazo, Richard Del Rosario, Dominic Uy, and others.

Commentators

Play-by-play

Analysts

Courtside reporters

Previous commentators and courtside reporters

Vitto Lazatin (2004)
TJ Manotoc (2004)
Jude Turcuato (2004-2005)
Rheema Chanco (2004-2005)
Gretchen Malalad (2004)