Blocked by the government and facing harsh curbs, Pakistan’s private TV channels have turned to the Internet to reach viewers starved of news.
KARACHI: Blocked by the government and facing harsh curbs, Pakistan’s private TV channels have turned to the Internet to reach viewers starved of news about the state of emergency in the country.
Authorities took cable broadcasters off the air on Saturday when they first started to report that military ruler President Pervez Musharraf was about to impose an emergency.
Since then most Pakistanis have faced either blank screens or the sanitised news broadcast by state television.
But the independent stations have hit back with Internet streaming and satellite broadcasting. “News is a contraband item in Pakistan now and it is being sold on the black market,” Imran Aslam, the president of Geo Television, said.
Geo sent an SMS to cellphone users telling them to log onto its website (
www.geo.tv) to get live transmission.
Another channel, ARY One, sent out a similar email (
www.arydigital.tv). “Technology has progressed beyond (the government’s) imagination and we believe this is the best time to put new media into operation,” said Aslam, whose channel is running an on-screen counter showing the time elapsed since the emergency began.
He added that there had been a “rush on Internet log-ons” since Musharraf imposed emergency rule.
There are between three and five million Internet users among Pakistan’s 160 million-strong population, service providers say, up from less than one million in 2001.
“Professional journalists find ways to tell people the truth,” said Azhar Abbas, director of news and current affairs at Dawn TV, Pakistan’s first English-language news channel.
“We are already live screening on our website, we are trying to establish other ways of keeping Pakistan in the picture,” he added.
The channels can also be accessed via satellite, and sales of satellite dishes have jumped. Meanwhile, newspaper hawkers in Karachi said their sales had doubled since the emergency began.
“Dozens of people are coming to my stall to see the newspaper headlines. It is like the old days before TV channels came,” said a vendor.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}