Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Popularity of News Channels in Pakistan!

People outside Pakistan who have never visited Pakistan or have visited only once or twice or know a little about Pakistan think of Pakistanis as people which are away from the general politics. This was true few years back but the Pakistan of Today is completely changed. And all the credit goes to the TV Channels of private sectors of Pakistan.

The channel’s boom has really educated Pakistanis a lot. At-least in terms of politics and international politics. Today they know US attacked IRAQ not for any weapons of mass destruction but for oil, if India is shouting that attack on Indian embassy in Afghanistan was by ISI so it is the planning to get the basis to attack Pakistan. And all this is due to News Channels.

The boom of Pakistani TV channels came in 2002 with number 1 private TV channel of Pakistan “Geo TV”. Geo was the first channel after NTM (first private TV channel of Pakistan which closely worked and researched to know the interest of Pakistani People). I remember when it started its Test transmission, after first day every one was talking about GEO. I think it was a great thing because every second person was talking or thinking about GEO programs. For the first time people started watching news with interest as they knew that GEO will be neutral.

And after that in the next 5 years Private Sector has really worked hard to gain strong position in market. Today according the latest surveys Talk Shows, News, Debates and discussions on current political conditions are more popular then Dramas or musical shows. The major reason which I see as the reason for the popularity of News Channels is the updates, neutral news, hard talk with every politician and responsible guy for any dispute and the ability of fueling the fire. In the past PTV played the role of literally a DOG of government always putting news in favor of government. Many times the major updates and news of opposition of those times (no matter even if the opposition had biggest political leaders of the country) never use to get a place in PTV news. Things like that kept Pakistani people away from news and talk shows for a long time. But as Private sector entered the market with the aim of providing exact news and updates to people, they started getting attract towards news channels.
The biggest proof of popularity of news channels is that the last 5 channels which started their transmission, from those 3 are news channels and are listed in “A” category of channels where as the other 2 are entertainment channels but belong to “C” category.

I am happy that that the news channels are gaining popularity and are educating people at-least up to the level where people can understand International Politics

Note: The incidents told in the blog related to US policies against Iraq and Indian Embassy attacks in Afghanistan are not mentioned due to any personal feeling. They are just the conclusions which have been drawn by TV Channels.

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