BULGAR

A51
Laparan, Angeli
Leoncio, Nadine
Rutaquio, Phoebe

Bulgar (Boses ng masa, mata ng bayan) – A national and International Daily Tabloid
MVRS Publications, Inc.
Editorial Address – 534 Quezon Avenue, Quezon City 1100 (7490091)
Business Address – 534 Quezon Avenue, Quezon City 1100 (7495664 to 65 and 7491493)
Production site/plant – 534 Quezon Avenue, Quezon City 1100 (5267574)
Phone fax/website – 7123874, mvrs@bulgar.com.ph, http://www.bulgar.com.ph

Publishers

Bulgar gave a different line of positions who they believe should be more focused on in this line of research. These people are as follows:

Editor-in-Chief: Ed Maglabe – The primary editor. He has the final responsibility for operations and policies. He is in charge of the associate editors and guides them. He has the final say on the content of the newspapers. He is also the main representative of the newspaper.

Managing Editor: Mina Jose – She is in charge of the newsroom and internal operations of the paper. This person maintains the staff. Basically, this person is the behind-the-scenes strength of the paper

News Editor: Nats Taboy – He runs the paper hands-on. He takes care of the content of the paper and combining them.

VP for Publication: Joey Venancio

Chief of Reporters: Almar Danguilan

Bulgar is populated with numerous personalities who have made their way in the business for their line of work in Politics, entertainment news and News. These include Korina Sanchez, Imee Marcos, Jinggoy Estrada, Fred Lim, Cristy Fermin

In an issue, there are about 11 reporters who post about news having benefits like Holiday and Christmas bonuses, free meal allowance, transportation allowance and monthly salary. Editor-in-Chief Ed Maglabe would not give us full details about salary of columnist, correspondents, and contributors. However he says, there’s not much financial incentive for being in print. It depends on the writer’s scoop and sometimes with the status or reputation of the writer too.

History

From magazine to Tabloid

The BULGRR tabloid was originally a BULGAR magazine which was produced by M.V.R.S Publications, Inc. The magazine industry started on December 2, 1990. Movies, celebrities, entertainment and showbiz gossip were the focus of the said magazine. Its first printing release consists of 10,000 copies and had a cover price of P10.00. These magazines were only available in 25 magazine stands in Metro Manila. Since printing magazine has an inevitable high cost, M.V.R.S. decided to change the magazine into a tabloid newspaper.

However, Bulgar was not only devoted to entertainment and gossip. It is also a competition for newspapers. In a comparative content analysis conducted by The Makati Science Vision editorial staff on the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) and the Bulgar's July 22, 2007 issue, it was found out that Bulgar, despite its smaller size, packed more articles, photos, and headlines than the PDI. Bulgar's front page had 13 headlines, all of which had stories in the inside pages, as compared to the PDI's nine headlines, five of which were in the same page. Including the inside pages, the PDI, with 22 pages in the main section, had an average of two stories per page, while Bulgar, with only 16 pages, had an average of three.

Bulgar Tabloid in its early years

The Bulgar tabloid was first released to the public on December 2, 1991, exactly one year after the Bulgar magazine. Its cover price was P 1.50 per copy and has 8 pages. The printing order was 25, 000 per day and newsagents increased to 100.

Bulagar had to be competitive in the tabloid market. It conformed to the existing trend which is to feature pictures of celebrities in the front page and even in the inside pages. The use of street language and the mixture of Tagalog and English texts were also used in order to meet the needs of the tabloid reading consumers. After 6 months, Bulgar ditched the use of sexy pictures of women. They started to use serialized love stories to catch more attention from the readers.

In 1994, M.V.R.S. management advised the Editorial Board to ban the sexy pictures and love stories. But being a tabloid that targets a class C and D readers, headlines should still be written in a sensationalized manner. Showbiz news should also be given more focus.

The present scope of Bulgar

Bulgar Tabloid is almost 17 years. It is no longer limited to class C and D market but also all economic classes and all age groups. For the past 9 years, Bulgar Tabloid has been number one in the print media industry.

AWARDS:

2005 Philippine Marketing Excellence Award
Bulgar Most Outstanding Tabloid
2005 National Product Quality Excellence Award
Bulgar Best Tabloid

Circulation

Total circulation: 610, 024 (weekdays)

915,036 (Sundays) – 5% increase

Sold: 427,017 (weekdays)

640,525 (Sundays)

roughly about 70% of circulation

Returned: 183,007 (weekdays)

274,511 (Sundays)

roughly about 30% of circulation

Geographical Regional Breakdown

Greater Manila – 306, 810 (50%)

Provinces – 275, 154 (45%)

Foreign Countries – 28,060 (5%)

Regional Circulation breakdown

Ilocos Region – 49,570 (18%)

Cagayan Valley – 18, 868 (7%)

Central Luzon – 108,060 (40%)

Southern Luzon – 64,497 (23%)

Bicol Region – 8,850 (3%)

Visayas – 12,531 (4.5%)

Mindanao – 12,978 (4.5%)

Since the number of copies created are about 600,000, they mention that the pass-on readership industry standard in 8-10%. The personnel mentioned that the readership reaches 10 times of the number of printed.

Editions

The editorial deadline is before around 6pm, extending until 7:30 as for the tabloid to be proofread and edited before printing. Since Bulgar starts to print at around 9 pm, sometimes they wait until 10 in the evening for the lottery results. Most of the time, the edition is done only once although there may be times when they have to edit twice, which also happens often.

Production Information

All the offices in Bulgar are located at the same address. Even editorials are created at the location. They also are proof- read for corrections in details and grammar and spelling.

Bulgar mentioned that the standard tabloid page measurement is 26 x 30 cm while the Center spread measures 26x54 cm.

Bulgar claimed that since April 2007, the company started becoming high- tech in a sense that they no longer undergo cut-and-paste rather, they already use Computer- to- plate technology. The advertising staff interviewed also mentioned that after cut- and- paste, there is another technology that serves the process for layouting, lower than CTP Technology but Bulgar immediately jumped from Cut-and-paste last year to CTP. They used Adobe Photoshop and In Design and because of the computer technology available. These software programs made the process faster and more efficient. Because of this, the printing is already done direct to plate.

They can produce about 25,000 to 30,000 copies per hour. Printing time starts 9pm and at the latest 10pm in accordance to the time the lotto results will come out. Bulgar also noticeably uses only black and red ink, with minimal colors, which they only produce for the ads. Their columns are normally plain black.

Advertising rates

General Display Advertisement Rates

Monday – Sunday
P285.00 / Col. Cm.
FULL PAGE Base Rate: P65,835.00 (7 cols. X 33 cm.)

Position and Color Surcharge
Page 2, 3, Center Spread and Back Page: Plus 50% of the Base Rate
One (1) color – plus 30% of the Base Rate
Two (2) colors – plus 60% of the Base Rate
Full colors – plus 80% of the Base Rates

*Rates are subject to 12% VAT

Classified Ads Box Rate

Monday – Sunday
P215.00 / Col. Cm.

Mechanical Requirement
1 column - 3.2 cms.
2 columns - 6.9 cms.
3 columns - 10.4 cms.
4 columns - 14.0 cms.
5 columns - 17.6 cms.
6 columns - 21.5 cms.
7 columns - 25.0 cms.
Column Depth - 33.0 cms.
Full Page - 231.0 cms.

Sources

Our main interviewee was Editor-in-Chief, Ed Maglabe. He was very accomadating and entertained our questions. Other people from the office also guided us such as Mr. De los Reyes from the Advertising department and Ms. Resurrecion from the Circulation department.