Eugenio L. Lopez III (3rd from right), ABS-CBN chairman and chief executive officer, with (from right) Lopez Inc. chair Presy Lopez Psinakis, ABS-CBN vice chairman of the board Augusto Almeda Lopez and president and chief operating officer Charo Santos-Concio during the company’s annual stockholders’ meetingIt does not make a difference if there’s one owner or a hundred owners, “we’re still competing against all of them.” This was the response of ABS-CBN chairman and chief executive officer Eugenio L. Lopez III (EL3) when asked to comment on persistent talks about the planned merger of GMA Network Inc. with TV5.

Speaking after the company’s June 21 annual stockholders’ meeting, EL3 said: “It doesn’t change what we have to do. We’re very focused on our own strategy. The number of channels that we have to compete against remains the same. As far as we’re concerned, we just have to execute and we’ll be okay.”

ABS-CBN president and chief operating officer Charo Santos-Concio pointed out that the company has taken the next steps in its vision to becoming the Filipino content provider of choice, finalizing the business plan to build a soundstage and backlots.

“…These are facilities that would enable us to have better production quality while saving on time and cost of location shootings,” Santos-Concio said during the stockholders’ meeting.

ABS-CBN plans to build 10 soundstages in the next five years on a 15-hectare lot in Quezon City. Each soundstage, which costs up between P150 million to P200M, will house an alternative shooting location for the network’s shows.

Currently, the company does up to 75% of all the shooting on location. With soundstages, location shooting will be brought down to about 30%.

Meanwhile, ABS-CBN chief financial officer Ronaldo Valdueza said the company expects its first-half profit growth to be flat, but is still on track to meet its full-year net income target.

“… We are on track for P1.3 billion,” Valdueza said.

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