At the end of every summer, a handful of channels explode onto the scene, further incensing the all out war that media has since become.
At the end of every summer, a handful of channels explode onto the scene, further incensing the all out war that media has since become. While this year's contenders have yet to emerge, last summer three new music and lifestyle channels launched more than just test transmissions: MTv Pakistan, AAG and PLAY TV entered the playing field.
MTv had the benefit of the hype: the name sold, even though the channel was just Ghazanfar Ali's (read Pakistan's Rupert Murdoch) Indus Music revamped with imported graphics. The beauty of MTv is that it survives (rather, it's doing quite well) in spite of shoestring budgets, no internal organisation and severely underpaid, overworked staff who somehow agree to burn the midnight oil, even on Eid.
The VJ's most popular with the teens are over thirty (and yet experience no existential angst over their occupation). And then there's actor, model, VJ and independent film director Adnan Malik, who poses for Pepsi with his legs splayed open a la Calvin Klein underwear ads, and yet promotes the independent Kara Film Festival with equal zeal.
AAG is the awami youth channel whose billboards tagged "Aag Lagaadein?" (in Urdu) seem more an appeal to terrorism than youth culture. Their VJ's are known as the "9 Jawan" and their most popular show is Chinese movies overdubbed in Punjabi. AAG is notorious for drastically delayed salaries, albeit being the highest paymaster on the block (some AAG directors take home close to a lakh ever month!).
And if you're fresh off the college boat, don't take your ideas to them, because chances are that even if the idea is approved, you won't be, and you can kiss your concept goodbye. Owned by the only man in Pakistan who possesses a Rolls Royce Phantom, Shakeel-ur-Rehman (owner Geo News and Geo English) did not get where he is today without putting a little bounce in it when screwing his partners, business or otherwise.
And then there's PLAY TV, Pakistan's first English language elitist channel, aiming to promote "intelligent" music and lifestyle programming that did not fall short on the gloss or eye candy factor. Along the way, PLAY has become a 60/40 Minglish music channel whose current claim to fame is re-launching Ali Saleem (aka Beghum Nawazish Ali) as a man in search of a wife.
(Umbreen works with a TV channel in Karachi)
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