Philippines’ prime-time period fantasy drama, “Maria Clara at Ibarra”, hit average ratings of 15.1% within four days of its 3 October premiere and ranked number one in its daily Monday-Friday timeslot, the Manila-based GMA Entertainment Group said today.

The time-shift series, based on two novels by José Rizal, airs on both GMA and GTV channels, with episodes available on GMA’s social media channels, and is scheduled to run for 20 weeks until February 2023.

According to Nielsen Philippines TAM preliminary/overnight data provided by GMA, average combined ratings on the two channels from 10-14 October was 14.8%.

Set between 19th century Philippines under Spanish colonial rule and today, the series stars Barbie Forteza as gen-Z nursing student, Julie Anne San Jose as the perfect 19th-century lady, and Dennis Trillo as Crisostomo Ibarra.

Clips from the series have accumulated 130 million views on TikTok.

On GMA Network’s Facebook page, the first six episodes have been watched one million times each, GMA said, describing this as a milestone.

Directed by Zig Dulay, “Maria Clara at Ibarra” replaced the 65-episode action drama “Lolong” (aka “Crocodile Whisperer”), starring Ruru Madrid.

So far, “Maria Clara at Ibarra” is tracking behind “Lolong”.

The average rating for “Lolong” for its first 10 episodes was 16.29%, according to Nielsen data.

The average across 63 of the 65 episodes based on available data was 16.7%.

Already renewed for a second season “Lolong”, topped its time slot for 62 of its 65 episodes (source: AGB Nielsen, NUTAM people).

The peak rating was 19.3% for the season finale on 30 September. The lowest was 14.6% on 4 August 2022.