President Musharraf allowed Geo News and its sports channel Geo Super back on the air with immediate effect last week before leaving for a visit to Europe.
ISLAMABAD: Geo News, Pakistan's most popular Urdu news channel, which was banned by President Pervez Musharraf following the imposition of emergency rule, was beamed into homes by cable networks on Monday after a shutdown of nearly three months.
President Musharraf allowed Geo News and its sports channel Geo Super back on the air with immediate effect last week before leaving for a visit to Europe. In a full-page advertisement with the caption "Geo Phir Say" in its sister newspaper The News, the Geo group announced the comeback of the two channels.
Geo News aired special promos between its news bulletins to mark its comeback and to thank its viewers for their support.
Along with all other domestic and foreign news channels, Geo News disappeared from most television screens soon after Musharraf proclaimed emergency and imposed strict curbs on the media on November 3 last year. Geo's sports, youth and entertainment channels were also taken off the air.
Though other news channels -- including Dawn News, Aaj TV and Business Plus were back on cable networks by November 12, Geo News and ARY Oneworld remained banned from cable systems and were available only via satellite and the Internet.
There were a series of protests across the country against the ban on Geo. Some of the channel's anchors even hosted their shows on the roadside in several cities as a mark of protest.
Last month, two of the Geo channels -- Geo entertainment and Aag, a youth channel -- were allowed back on cable networks.
The financial impact of the prolonged ban on the Pakistani Geo network was unprecedented as its entertainment and sports channels lost a lot of advertising revenue.
Just before Geo Super was taken off the air, the channel had secured the rights to the India-Pakistan cricket series, an event bigger than the Ashes in terms of importance in sports, and lost abut $15 million.
In total, the network's loss is estimated to be between Rs 150 crore and 200 crore -- enough to have endangered the livelihood of over 10,000 employees.
Geo Television started its broadcasts on August 14, 2002 on the occasion of Pakistan's Independence Day.
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