Who’s scared of “#AlDub?”

If you follow the ongoing spate of complaints of SkyCable subscribers on social media, raising hell over receiving poor GMA Network signal whenever noontime show Eat Bulaga is on air, then the answer may be heavily implied.

Aldub

Eat Bulaga, Philippine TV’s longest running program and a block timer on GMA Network, is back in the headlines again for breaking audience ratings with its six-week-old “Kalye-serye segment” that gave rise to the “accidental love team” of Maine Mendoza a.k.a. Yaya Dub and GMA Network actor Alden Richards.

Now famed across the country as #AlDub, Filipinos are glued to this “will-they-ever-meet-in-person” love story, what with the comedic tandem of Jose Manalo as Frankie Arenoli, and Wally Bayola as Lola Nidora, doing everything in their power to keep the two apart.

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On Thursday, GMA Network filed a complaint with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) against SkyCable, based on viewers’ reports of poor signal “before Eat Bulaga and/or during the airing of the program’s top-rating AlDub Kalye-serye segment.”

In a letter dated August 25, 2015, the station, through its Senior Vice President for Engineering Elvis Ancheta and Vice President for Legal Affairs Lynn Delfin, appealed for the immediate action of the NTC “for the sake of paying SkyCable subscribers who are being short-changed through the irresponsible acts of their service provider.”

In a press statement sent to The Manila Times, GMA said, “This is a violation of Section 6 of the NTC MC No. 4-08-88 or the Revised Rules and Regulations Governing Cable Television Systems in the Philippines.

“In line with the complaint, the network cited a series of tweets posted from July 19 to August 21, 2015 by televiewers from Metro Manila, Cavite, Bacolod and Iloilo, who mostly decried the apparent ‘sabotage’ perpetrated by SkyCable and expressed ‘disgust’ for missing their favorite portion of the country’s longest running noon-time show.”

Among the tweets GMA submitted to the NTC stated:

“OMG! Walang signal ang GMA sa sky cable dito sa Bacolod pero ang iba meron. Nakaka bad trip! Eat Bulaga na mamaya #AlDubHihintayinKita,” Twitter user @wyne_me, posted on August 13, 2015.

“Sky cable naman eh kapag eat bulaga na lagi malabo o mawawala wag ganun #ALDUBKeepTheFaith’,” Twitter user @floresjenny1214, posted on August 20, 2015.

Citing numbers, the GMA Network press statement further disclosed: “Last Saturday (August 22, 2015), Eat Bulaga registered a household rating of 31.3 percent in NUTAM (National Urban Television Audience Measurement) beating its counterpart program’s 13.7 percent, according to Nielsen TV Audience Measurement. The episode, which showed the wedding of Yaya Dub to Frankie Arenoli (Jose Manalo), garnered more than 2 million tweets and was praised by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines for promoting Catholic values.”

The Manila Times sought a comment from Skycable through its public relations team, Allouta Group, but no statement was sent until deadline time last night.