News
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Criticism of president is boon for Pak TV ratings: WSJ* Report says Pakistan TV ad sales jumped 20% last year to $174 million
Daily Times Monitor
KARACHI: TV executives in Pakistan, supported by a boom in advertising revenue and feeding off a public taste for conspiracy theories, are using popular news channels to chip away at the standing of President Asif Ali Zardari, stated a report appearing in The Wall Street Journal on Saturday.
According to the article, news anchors often use populist, anti-government and anti-US rhetoric in a bid to raise their viewership.
Anchors at Geo Television, the country's largest broadcaster by ad revenue and viewership, regularly attack President Zardari's government-a US ally prosecuting a war against the Pakistan Taliban, the report said.
Almost nightly, Geo's talk show hosts call for President Zardari's ouster on corruption charges and urge him to flee the country. They claim Zardari, a democratically elected leader, has allowed CIA drone strikes against the Taliban leadership.
A spokesman for President Zardari said television news media in general is discrediting itself by engaging in partisan behaviour.
"They gossip and take hearsay from the streets onto the TV screens," says Owais Tohid, a journalist and former director of English-language news at Geo. "I know how desperate they become when owners ask them to improve their ratings," he said.
Imran Aslam, president of Karachi-based International Media Corp, which owns Geo Television and the Jang Group of newspapers, defends the campaign against President Zardari. "You have to hold these people accountable. The opposition's not doing it," Aslam said.
However, Aslam acknowledged some anchors go too far. He says that those who take militant or nationalist stances have seen their ratings drop; but those with anti-government slants are still popular. "We are still learning," Aslam says. "We need to look at ourselves. Responsibility of the media is a huge thing," he said.
But the channel is facing some of its own bad publicity, too. Geo has faced heightened scrutiny after a popular host, Hamid Mir, was caught on tape last month talking secretly to a militant wanted on terrorism charges.
Mir has said the tapes are fraudulent and were made by intelligence agents who are out to get him. Mir didn't respond to requests for an interview.
Aslam says it is in fact Mir on the tape and that the channel is conducting an internal inquiry into who the other man is on the line.
Even some anchors with reputations as conspiracy theorists say they have become uncomfortable with the political role television is playing in the war against the government. "We are not players, we are umpires," says Aamir Liaquat Hussain, who anchors a religious talk show on Geo. "We should act like a neutral person," he said.
Profits: The report said Pakistan's television industry was doing well despite the nation's shaky economic picture. The report claimed that annual TV advertisement sales jumped 20 percent last year to $174 million, after rising 13 percent in 2008.
There are almost 100 satellite and cable channels in Pakistan today, some in English but most in the Urdu language, covering news, entertainment, fashion and sports and reaching a third of the country's 175 million people. Scores of TV channels have been created in recent years, boosting free speech and spurring social debate.
Until a decade ago, Pakistani television consisted of only the state-owned Pakistan Television Network. But former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf deregulated the industry, spawning scores of new channels.
New channels have shined a light on social and political subjects that were previously taboo, such as police brutality and forced marriages, said Muhammad Waseem, a professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk