quickly regained its foothold when it began to broadcast a Tagalog dub of the 1994 Mexican telenovela Marimar, which turned out to be a phenomenal success, and discombobulating the competition for some time. The network became the driving force in Tagalog-dubbed foreign programs and movies and made the popular and turnaround its ratings on the evening prime time. Due to the success, the other networks followed and broadcast telenovelas not only from Mexico but also Spanish language telenovelas from the United States, Colombia (GMA 7's Betty La Fea), Venezuela (GMA 7's Samantha and All My Love) and Argentina (GMA 7's Monica Brava) and eventually even drama series from Brazil (ABS-CBN's Ana Manuela) and Asian drama series from Taiwan (notably Meteor Garden) and South Korea (notably Bright Girl). The network also became the home of the cream of the crop amongst the English language television programs around the world; with its strong primetime programming line-up. This lineup helped RPN maintain its overall 4th place standing in the ratings during the latter half of the 90s, despite later facing competition with UHF stations such as ABS-CBN's Studio 23, which offered more canned programs compared to most VHF stations. In 1999, RPN slid again to fifth place behind ABC, but managed to recover its 4th place standing the following year until early 2003. Second downfall (2003–2007) In the mid-2000s, a major network war in the ratings game ensued with the battle of the Taiwanese/Korean-language television series (which started through ABS-CBN's broadcast of Taiwanese series Meteor Garden) between the two leading networks, ABS-CBN and GMA, causing RPN into decline in the telenovelas battle. On February 19, 2004, Republic Act No. 9250 signed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo renewed RPN its congressional franchise for another 25 years. It was also in the same year when the network launched its primetime block, dubbed as The Prime Shift, blocktimed by Solar Entertainment Corporation. The said programming block lasted until 2006 – largely due to continued financial turmoil – shrunk to 24 TV Stations to just 8 TV Stations by 2007. Solar Entertainment era (2007–2014) Blocktime with Solar, as C/S; C/S9; Solar TV (2007–2011) On March 11, 2007, after its initial tieup with The Prime Shift block, RPN announced a partnership with Solar Entertainment Corporation, an operator of a number of cable channels in the country. The company began co-producing new programming for the network, such as a