Startalk (Philippine talk show)

Startalk premiered on October 8, 1995 and was filmed at the Fernandina Suites. Boy Abunda, Kris Aquino and Lolit Solis served as the hosts. Aquino left the show in 1996 and Dawn Zulueta later joined as a host. In 1997, Zulueta quit the show and Rosanna Roces served as her replacement. The show also featured Steve, Fayatollah and Pepita as segment hosts of T! The Tigbak Authority. Steve also served as a regular voice-over for the show. The show later added new segments such as Da Who, Startalk True Stories and Alok Bati. On June 5, 1999, Abunda departed the show and was replaced by Butch Francisco.

Through the viewers, viewers have observed Osang as too frank with her comments and occasionally displays her lewd conduct in front of her guests. The MTRCB even issued a warning against Osang for wearing gowns that are too provocative, two of them when she hosted the 12th PMPC Star Awards for Television in 1998 where she just wore a body paint to cover one of her breasts, and one where she wore an all-black nun costume with a silver cross at the front, with a see through satin at the back, revealing her buttocks.

In 2004, Roces fell out with her friend Vicki Belo. The said feud had something to do with Osang allegedly violating the contract she signed with Belo's company, Forever Flawless, where she was the main endorser. As a result, Osang was replaced by Lorna Tolentino and Katya Santos. Osang retaliated the move by not acknowledging Forever Flawless on-air (which she was supposed to do as part of the exchange deal) and instead started to acknowledge Belo's competition in the dermatology industry, Manny and Pie Calayan. She also revealed on air that her liposuction sessions with Belo was not something she was really proud of and called Belo just a gym instructor.

When Roces jointly celebrated her birthday with co-host and manager Lolit Solis during a special episode of "Startalk" during May which served as her last live appearance on the show.

During the on-air phone patch, she called Lolit various names and threatened to boycott the show as long as Lolit is there. It was reported that after the said phone interview, GMA management tried to pacify Osang and Lolit's feud by calling the two for a meeting. But the two warring hosts declined. The Startalk staff also reportedly sided with Lolit and threatened to leave the show if GMA decided to side with Osang.

On June 2004, Osang finally bade goodbye to "Startalk", by appearing on GMA's other talk show S-Files and declared that she was out of the show. After her farewell with GMA, Osang appeared at The Buzz (for which the hosts were the 2 original hosts of Startalk: Aquino & Abunda) where she revealed her issues with Vicky Belo and Lolit Solis.

Despite the issues made by Osang, Startalk proved its consistent dominance in the Saturday afternoon timeslot thereafter prompted rival network ABS-CBN to do away with producing weekly dramas in 2003 and instead, put another showbiz talk show to compete with "Startalk". The show has survived competition from five Saturday showbiz talk shows that were produced by ABS-CBN from 2003 to 2013. These were S2: Showbiz Sabado, EK Channel, ETK: Entertainment Konek, Entertainment Live and Showbiz Inside Report.

Lorna Tolentino and Joey de Leon became guest co-hosts until they were promoted as regular hosts.[1] In 2008, Tolentino left the show and Ricky Lo of The Philippine Star served as her replacement.

In April 2010, the show was retitled as Startalk TX.[2] In 2013, Heart Evangelista joined as a host. The show's 1,000th episode aired on March 21, 2015, while its 1,024th episode served as the final episode. It featured a lookback on the show with clips of the previously aired episodes and a segment featuring Abunda.

Hosts

Kris Aquino

Boy Abunda

Joey de Leon

Heart Evangelista

• Lolit Solis (1995–2015)
• Boy Abunda (1995–1999)
• Kris Aquino (1995–1996)[3]
• Dawn Zulueta (1996–1997)
• Rosanna Roces (1997–2004)
• Butch Francisco (1999–2015)
• Lorna Tolentino (2004–2008)
• Joey de Leon (2005–2015)
• Ricky Lo (2008–2015)
• Heart Evangelista (2013–2015)

Segment hosts

• Pepita (1998–2010)
• Fayatollah (1998–2010)
• Steve (1998–2010)
• Chariz Solomon (2007–2015)
• Jan Manual (2007–2015)
• Vaness del Moral (2007–2015)
• Alyssa Alano (2008–2013)
• Nina Kodaka (2010–2015)
• Nathalie Hart (2010–2015)

According to AGB Nielsen Philippines' Mega Manila household television ratings, the final episode of Startalk scored a 12.7% rating.[4]

• Startalk at IMDb