1953
Eugenio Lopez Sr, owner of newspaper Manila Chronicle, gets a TV franchise from Congress.
- February 1: The first TV station in Asia begins in Japan, with the first TV broadcast of the NHK.
- May: Quirino sends Jose “Joe” Navarro, Arcadio “Cady” Carandang, Henry “Slim” Chaney and Romualdo “Romy” Carballo to RCA in New York to study TV technology. ABS, via Quirino, begins importing 300 TV sets with the help of the Binondo hardware store Joe’s Electronics and sets up the TV sets in restaurants, hospitals, church plazas, advertising agencies, hotels, other public places and homes of prominent people. Lindenberg and Chaney bring TV technology in the Philippines afterward and training of ABS employees in TV technology starts.
- July: The ABS TV tower is set up in San Juan.
- September: ABS launches DZBC as DZAQ (AQ for Quirino’s initials) as the Philippines’ most powerful commercial radio station with the ABS tower–then a 50 KW transmitter and begins test TV broadcasts. ABS general manager Tony Chavez flew to Tokyo in Japan to meet with executives of the Matsushita company and buy from them the antennas to distribute for the TV sets.
- October 7: Quirino and Lindenberg open ABS’s DZAQ Channel 3, the first commercial TV station in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia.
- October 23: DZAQ Channel 3 begins telecast to TV audience of mostly rich people. [A TV set then costs P1,200–10 times the monthly salary then. 1 out of 2,000 Pinoys own a TV set.] Quirino’s birthday party at his residence in San Juan with President Quirino as special guest–the first TV coverage of a special event–airs on ABS then. ABS telecasts 50 miles from San Juan at 6:00-10:00pm starting then.
- 4th Quarter: The open spaces above the Republic Supermarket at Florentino Torres Street in Manila is ABS’s new studio complete with a transmitter from RCA. Quirino uses ABS as an information medium for the reelection bid of the sickly President Quirino. ABS reports the reelection campaigns of President Quirino, the Philippine national elections and the eventual win of Ramon Magsaysay as president. ABS broadcasts old American movies, films from foreign embassies and special events.
- November 23: ABS then airs Edmond Rostand’s romantic drama Cyrano de Bergarac, the 3-hour full-length play, the first play on TV and the first big dramatic production on TV with Jesuit priest and media pioneer Father James Reuter as director.