I know this has happened in the US/UK with the arrival of Geo and ARY. What’s the situation like there now in Pak? Are those awful channels like Zee, Star etc. still on the cable network? Do people still watch 'em?
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
No one watches those Indian channels. They are going out of business.
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
Yea ... Its all Indian media conspiracy that pakistani audience luv dramas on star plus and etc.... People r gettin fed up with loud make up and stupid get ups...... U need a nerve 2 sit and watch Star plus
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
indian drama are influencing paki dramas. before pakistan had their dramas and india had their movies. now more paki dramas are like indian ones with their full make up and constant sari wearing. it is getting hard to find a really good pakistani drama.
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
star plus is still watched all over pak, but it has lost alot of viewers since last 2 years, rest of the indian channels are dead,
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
indian channels will ALWAYS enjoy big viewership in pakistan. Give them credit, they have done extensive research on their audience. They realize that housewives constitute majority of tv viewership in sub continent. So they’ve perfected the art of soap opera which is basically the main form of entertainment for sub continental house wives. Now you might say, well why can’t the paki wives watch pakistani soap operas. It’s because since they live in pakistan, they KNOW what they see in paki television is NOT how the paki society works. Pakistani dramas with club scenes, caked make up, extra marital affairs will come across as fake and idiotic. However, they are much more accepting of indian dramas with the same storyline because they don’t live in that society and some are even foolish enough to think that is exactly how indians live their life.
Now add to that HUGE housewive population the percentage of our society that are sexually frustrated teens and young adults. Once again, indian entertainment industry took full advantage of this situation by creating their whole music scene and bollywood around half naked girls. In our society, where expressions of sexuality is frowned upon and the stigma attached to concepts like dating and love is great, TV has become their source of sexual needs, no matter how sick that may sound. Why watch videos of “aadat” “chal dil meray.” “khamaj” “dhaani” etc etc etc, when you can tune into B4U, mtv india, channel V and watch a indian girl dance in the rain wearing what can only be described as bra and panty. Imagine you are a 18 year old dude living in karachi who isn’t even allowed to go to a college that has girls simply because your ammi thinks girls are bad for their pyaray beta. What will you watch, “aadat” or a girl in swimsuit dancing away in the rain. If you noticed, most people in pakistan that are bollywood freak are usually the middle class and lower middle class people. Upper society are into american culture or pakistani pop. It holds true for america too. I’ve noticed over the years that my friends who have conservative parents, are into bollywood trash and cheap indian remixes. They can go on and on about the latest hair style of hrithik roshan, but ask them about “sampooran” by meekal hasan, they will look at you like you are speaking japanese. While the other group of friends I have that come from liberal paki households, they are into american culture (I don’t mean the britney spears type culture) and paki pop. I don’t even bother talking to my conservative friends about paki pop, I only discuss fuzon with my liberal friends. Conservatives of pakistan have turned to bollywood and india for entertainment because they think that they still represent the eastern culture unlike the “amreeki” kaafirs who are only interested in SEX. 
naozoobillah. They still don’t realize that what bollywood and indian music industry churns out is THOUSAND times worse than anything coming out of western mainstream media. Indian tv for them is a great choice compared to dry paki entertainment industry devoid of sex appeal but they are not as “vulgar” as the kaafirs of the west.
Indian entertainment industry is very smart. More so than we give them credit for. They know exactly what they want and have a wonderful way of going about to achieve their target. It’s time for us to do the same, and no, I don’t mean that we should follow them into churning out our version of trashy music videos and dramas. But the encouraging thing is that the situation is changing. Private channels of pakistan have successfully turned some paki viewers back to our entertainment industry. Just give them some time, they are still a bit confused with some of their programming like the greatest drama of all time “safaid posh” with it’s blatant indian style nakhrays, but they will come around once they see that following indian tactics isn’t the way to go about things. If viewers wanted to watch indian style dramas, they will turn to indian channels, not to geo with their idiotic wannabe dramas.
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
Atlanta, no pun intended that was quite a mouthful. So scanning through whatyou said, I have to agree with your point that basically the Indian entertainment, which these days IS porn [they stopped pretending decency yrs ago], and that it does hold appeal for a certain frustrated niche segement of the population which you talked about. Basically their channels are your telly heera mandees. Turn 'em on. Enjoy the porn.
But I have to say this: they have in no way perfected the ‘art’ of soaps. Their soaps are a rehash of those stupid saas/bahu films they used to make in the 80s [yup the ones where they sang supposedly ‘disco’ songs wearing pink frocks in some freaking garden]. They are too filmi, have no originality and project a totally superficial lifestyle which doesn’t even happen in their own darned desh. You haven’t seen what they’re showing on HUM TV. It’s almost the same level crap but its a lot more Pakistani as I have been told. And that channel is finding a lot of audience now.
I have to add here that the primary reason the housewives [which acc to you are major segment - which they may or may not be, I have no idea!] switched to those damn soaps was lack of any slick entertainment from the Pakistani side. The local dramas totally fell flat towards 2000. Now with GEO and other stuff, thing have gotten much better. And they have HUM too now…as I said before.
Basically the hold the kachraa channels had in from late 90s onwards has been broken, and we should applaud our local channels for doing that. More are on the horizon now, and if we get our act together in terms of makin good dramas, I don’t see any reason why we should not be able to put a permenant end to their viewership…i.e housewife waali 
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
Going by Atlanta's logic, adult channels such as Playboy Channel, Adam & Eve, and other similar filth shall be highly successful in Pakistan because the service/entertainment they provide is frowned upon so the local channels have their hands tied in depicting it and only those who are not bothered or contained by such contraints or hangups are, a la the indian channels, highly successful.....
Look forward to seeing Adam & Eve on cable in Pakistan....courtesy of all the sexually pragmatic and forwarding thinking Pakistanis.....
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
oye, they are already being shown and enjoy high viewership. It’s all underground ofcourse but you can definitely check it out if you know the right cable operator. It’s not the “forward thinking pakistanis” that are watching these channels my friend. They take part in live demonstration of such activity in the beach houses of karachi every night, no need for playboy channel for that. It’s the mullah crowd who are sexually deprived that are watching these channels.
now watch him blame musharraf. 
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
I agree that most of the stuff on Indian entertainment channels could easily be classified under 'soft porn'. Ever noticed how indian 'pop' songs have to have a semi-naked-chicks-dancing-in-rain theme to even get a chance to be played twice!
Perhaps shallowness of the indian entertainment is one reason why Paki bands make sucha big impression on some of the aware youths of India, i.e. Junoon in older days and now Strings, Fuzon etc.
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
Only the really Kameenay people still watch Indian channels a.k.a some families from my Dadial (my cousins speak better Hindi than Urdu it’s shameful), the rest of us now watch our own channels, Geo TV, ARY Digital, Khyber TV, PTV Prime etc.
Some Pakistani programs are getting over Indianised too though, and we need to stop that and work on establishing our own distinct identity, our Urdu is becoming more Sanskritised by the day when it is suppose to be Persian/Farsi heavy, traditional Urdu adapts the majority of it’s vocabulary from Persian not Sanskrit and there needs to be a ban on Saris and other typically Indian dress on national TV, it’s not representative of our culture. Our culture is a fusion of Indian, Iranian and Arab culture and all that needs to reflected whilst maintaining some originality.
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
^ thats so sad..
my cousin watches indian dramas/shows.
n i love my geo! :D
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
Although the quality of Pakistani drama is gone down but it is still much better then the Indian dramas which I hate to watch.
Re: Did the Pak channels kick off the Indie ones?
I agree. Anything’s better than those!