GMA Network’s Roxanne Barcelona: Investing in honesty and credibility

MANILA, Philippines - As vice president of GMA Worldwide Inc. (GWI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of GMA Network Inc., Roxanne Barcelona heads both program acquisitions and distribution sales for the network. “GWI is basically a buy and sell company,” she begins.

On the buying side, Roxanne is in charge of all foreign program acquisitions for GMA Channel 7 and GMA News Channel. The worldwide distribution of GMA’s local productions (TV and film) constitutes the selling part.

In this role, Roxanne deals with foreign clients. Feisty and fierce, the lady executive ensures that she does business with them in the most professional manner—with honesty and credibility as her virtues.

“My work ethic since Day 1 has always been to be honest and credible. If I promise something, I will move heaven and earth to fulfill it. If in the end I didn’t get it, I won’t regret it because I tried my best,” says Roxanne. “I always tell my people to be honest when they deal with foreign clients. It’s easy to make money in this business. But you have to protect your name. I’m very old school in the sense that it’s either I follow the rules or get out.”

Roxanne, who shifted from Pre-Medicine to Mass Communication on her third year in UP Diliman, is proud of the reputation she has built over the years she has been an acquisition executive. Her broadcasting career began in 1981 when she joined RPN 9 as special assistant to the general manager. During the political turmoil in 1986, Roxanne was tasked to perform various roles, including program acquisitions. “No one trained me for the job. I was learning on my own at the time. It was a hit-or-miss thing,” she recalls.

Fourteen years later, Roxanne is still in acquisitions and all the more passionate about the job. She joined GWI in 1996 and was the company’s first employee. Roxanne helped organize and set up the subsidiary.

“I’m proud of how the company has grown. When I first came here, we could not seriously sell because GMA was not producing its own content. Through the years, we built up our production capability and our client base. That did not happen overnight. We would go on sales calls at least twice a year and we would attend many markets and exhibits,” she recalls. “Selling is more challenging. It helps when you have a good product and I must say since we started selling more than eight years ago, we really have improved a lot in the quality of our production.”

Under her leadership, GWI has established good and solid relationships with major foreign distributors worldwide. It has also established the continuous distribution of GMA’s programs and films to most of the major broadcasters/pay TV operators in Hawaii, Canada, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Brunei, Romania, Italy, USA, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Alaska, and Africa. Syndication sales to various territories increased by over 4 percent last year and by 34 percent from 2010 to 2011.

“Southeast Asia is still the biggest market for us. Malaysia was the top buyer in 2012 and they have been consistently one of our best clients. Last year, Vietnam and Cambodia were emerging markets for our distribution sales,” explains Roxanne. “One of the emerging markets I can see this year is Mongolia. They’ve been buying a lot, they don’t have the expertise yet to produce yet a lot of their content so they’re sourcing programming elsewhere.”

Roxanne furthers that in general, drama is still the bestseller among the types of content that GWI sells. “It cannot be our sitcom because they can’t understand our humor. Buyers want contemporary and romance comedy but mostly, purely drama. They’re also very particular how the program rated when it was aired in GMA 7.”

Meanwhile, Filipinos also prefer romance comedy and drama. “Look at Temptation of Wife from Korea. That was pure drama and the ratings were very high when it was shown here. GMA is also very strong with historical dramas like Jewel in the Palace and Jumong. The key is always the script,” says Roxanne.

“This job is built on relationships. I get to meet a lot of interesting people and over the years, I have established very good relationships with my foreign clients and some of them have become my good friends,” she shares. “The rewarding thing about this job is I know I have contributed to what GMA is today. If a program rates, I’m happy because I know I had a hand on that, I was the one who found it or sourced it.”

Bringing Filipino content and showcasing it to the rest of the world have been a very fulfilling job for Roxanne. And she is grateful for the trust. “I like the fact that my bosses let me feel that they are confident in what I know and what I do. They have been good to us and they’re very supportive of what we want to do,” says Roxanne, who practically grew up in GMA because her family used to live next door to the old GMA studio.

Considered the country’s veteran buyer, Roxanne lives by simple yet very effective rules in life. “Respect your colleagues. Don’t step on people to get where you are. You’ll get there, you just need to work hard. If you’re honest and credible, you don’t need to step on people on your way up.”

No wonder she’s successful.