radio stations galore in pakistan
Radio broadcasting — an integral part of any nation’s infrastructure — has seen both numerous upsurges and downfalls in the local context. From the glory days of Radio Pakistan when families crowded around their transistors to catch the day’s news and entertainment, to the days when radio fell out of vogue due to TV’s dominance, to the current climate when FM stations have sparked a youthful ‘revolution,’ breathing new life into the radio industry, radio broadcasting’s has been a long, winding road in Pakistan.
Today, it would not be wrong to say that Radio Pakistan, a network of 25 mostly Medium Wave or AM stations from Gilgit to Karachi, is about to go the way of the dinosaurs. This is indeed a sad state of affairs as the staid state broadcaster is an essential public service tool and indeed if it is wrapped up or even downsized, the public, especially the population of the far flung areas of the country, will ultimately suffer. Yet the relentless march of progress (or is it commercialization?) cares little about the public good as frequency modulation stations — known as FM — have become the latest rage.
Literally, FM speaks another language. Its broadcast quality in terms of crispness of sound is vastly superior to AM. Its presenters are mostly young, westernized and mix in liberal doses of English into their on-air banter, whereas Radio Pakistan’s style has nearly always been a mix of sobriety and restraint. In this write-up we attempt to review the situation in Karachi, using it as a microcosm for FM stations across Pakistan, as well as looking at the future of Radio Pakistan.
** Currently, there are seven FM radio stations operating in Karachi. They are, in numerical order: City FM89, Radio One 91, Radioactive 96, FM 100, FM 101, Mast FM 103 and Apna Karachi 107. **Images attempted to talk to representatives of each of the stations to garner their views on not only the current state of radio, but also where their own stations stood as compared to the competition. Some folks were quite co-operative in talking about the situation, while others were pure nightmares. Here’s the battle log:
City FM 89: One of the newest entrants in the field, 89 currently operates four stations across Pakistan: Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Faisalabad. The hallmarks of 89’s style is that they broadcast almost exclusively in English. Whether they like it or not, 89 appeals to the English speaking elite — the so called upper crust — and those who wish they were in that income bracket. Their playlists tend to consist of mostly English tunes, some by obscure artists that only three-and-a-half people in New York’s Greenwich Village would know. Also, their radio jockeys or RJs prefer to converse in English instead of Urdu. City89’s other major weak point — one that all FM stations in the city share — is the amount of ‘dead air’. Dead air is the unintentional silence on radio that occurs when no song is playing and nothing is being spoken. This is happening a lot and must be remedied if the people in charge want to give off the impression of running a professional station.
But in their defence, City89 has recently started adding more and more Pakistani artists to their playlists and to their credit, they do often include artists that are cult faves around the world, as well as giving local unsigned talent a chance. Here’s what Narmeen Chinoy, the Chief Operating Officer of the station had to say:
“The radio station was launched in July 2004. The listenership is varied across Pakistan and it has developed tremendously since the launch. I would say 70 per cent of our listenership is still in cars. We are a music station but our talk is primarily English based, along with the bulk of our music. That itself should define for you what our target market is. We want to be an elegant, intelligent radio station. We want to educate the listener to varied forms of music. We’re into entertaining and educating. That’s where we’re coming from.”
Is the criticism that RJs don’t speak enough Urdu justified, considering the station broadcasts in Pakistan?
“You’ll find that our RJs are speaking a lot more Urdu. We want to get across to a cross-section of people. There’s a myth that all the RJs on City89 have an American accent, as if that’s some sort of requisite. That’s certainly not the case. We’re very much a radio station in Pakistan. As I said, we want to be an elegant, intelligent radio station, so you decide what our target market is.”
Where does City89 need improvement the most?
“The way FM is going right now, there needs to be a continued creative push on the programming side in order to be on top. We need to be two steps ahead. We don’t want to say that we’re the top ... there’s always room for improvement. The improvement, at least for FM89, will always come in the product that we deliver. What we deliver and how we deliver it. As for competition, it’s good to have competition. It’s healthy. Let’s just leave it at that,” Ms Chinoy winds up on a cheery note.
FM 101: The station has received a lot of flak from a lot of people. Started by the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation to counter the privately owned FM 100’s growing market presence in 1998, though 101 has reached out to a relatively large listenership, the station has been stereotyped as a very ‘Urdu medium’ station, appealing largely to the lower-middle class. In our class-conscious society that judges a person’s worth by the type of English he speaks, this can be more of a bane than a boon. But the 101 management hasn’t exactly helped its case by airing third rate advertisements of shady enterprises, as well as constantly bombarding listeners with the incredibly annoying jingles of a certain 0900 number. But to set the record straight, 101 was the first alternative to FM 100 and did give varied voices a platform before any of these young Turk stations were even conceived. Rabia Akram, Senior Producer at FM 101 Karachi, elaborates on her station.
“We started broadcasting on October 1, 1998 from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Today, we operate FM stations in Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Sialkot, Quetta and Peshawar, giving us eight stations in total. We can proudly say that from Karachi to Khyber we rule the airwaves. FM 101 was the brainchild of Anwar Mehmood, who was then the Director General of Radio Pakistan. He wanted to break FM 100’s monopoly. Actually, we were the first to broadcast on the FM band in this country, through our FM Gold service.”
What about FM 101’s target listenership?
“FM 101 is not marketed towards any particular group. We have different audiences for different slots. We aim for the general audience — everyone from the thelay walah to the person listening in his car stereo. Of course during different times of day we target different people. Basically, I would say this channel is meant for the youth. Anwar Mehmood was of the opinion that since the youth have stopped listening to the radio, we should get them interested in the format again. Thus the decision to launch the FM network was taken to revive the trend of radio listening.”
Where does FM 101 most need improvement?
“Presentation. Being a government owned organization we have plenty of restrictions and we have to work within those restrictions. I’ve heard what FM stations are doing internationally, and I want to implement those procedures here. Budgetary constraints end up negatively affecting the programming, thus the presentation automatically suffers. Secondly, our fee structure isn’t too spectacular, so we can’t pull the cream of the crop as far as broadcasters are concerned.”
What about the presence of commercial spots of questionable repute on the station’s cue sheet?
“FM doesn’t stand for ‘Father Mother azad.’ Substandard promos and commercials are indeed harmful to our presentation. We have tried to take steps to prevent this, and thankfully we no longer feature ads by quacks and homeopaths. These sorts of ads do sound incredibly cheap. As for the issue of FM 101 being an Urdu medium radio station, we most definitely are, under instructions form headquarters no less. We are told not to use too much English on air.”
FM 100: This is the granddaddy, age-wise, of FM stations in the country. Completing 10 years of broadcasting, FM 100 blazed the trails that are being followed by FM stations to this day.
Their broadcasters such as Akbar Shahbaz, Arif Abrar and Junaid Mumtaz, who’s now jumped ship to City89, helped turn Pakistanis on to a wide variety of radio programming that was previously unheard of. Akbar Shahbaz had his talk show, where one could air grievances about the workplace, home or society in general; Arif Abrar introduced many local youngsters to artists such as Neil Young and David Bowie in his stiff upper lip English accent and the once ubiquitous Junaid Mumtaz brought the concept of Top 40 spinning shock jocks to this country before releasing dodgy dance albums.
But today it is a different story for the privately owned FM 100. DJs are mostly substandard, as is the quality of the programming. FM 100 seems adrift in a sea of mediocrity, without direction or purpose. The only advantage one sees is the considerable listener base the station has cultivated after 10 years in the game. But just how bad are things? Zunair Shah, Manager Marketing and Sales, explains his station’s position.
“We started operations on March 23, 1995. Basically we are targeting the masses, we’re not targeting a four or five per cent target market. For instance our listenership in Karachi (100 also operates stations in Lahore and Islamabad) is spread out from Landhi to Clifton and Defence. We’re basically thinking about expansion. Currently our stations are reaching their target. We’re not threatened by the new stations because the newcomers are pursuing their target markets.
“Everybody’s doing a good job, but everybody’s target markets are different. We’re having a lot of fun with all this competition. Everybody’s here to work, and whoever has the best package will take home the business. I think the key to success in the FM game lies in marketing. Those stations that have strong marketing teams will get the most business. Of course the backbone is programming,” says he.
Radioactive 96: Another newcomer, 96 came with a bang. Its selection of music was quite in line with the contemporary tastes of the youth of today. Think of it this way: Radioactive 96 is pretty much the MTV of local FM radio: its content is shallow, slick and loud.
Since its focus is on young people, it sometimes employs racy double entendre laced conversation to keep the kids entertained, while the playlists tend to feature Top 40 music mixed in with cuts from other genres. Even its RJs seem the youngest of the young, with quite a few sounding more than a little wet behind the ears.
The station courted controversy for their late night talk show hosted by Mani and Azfar — a duo that employs street slang, bawdy humour, risque dialogues and an occassional swipe at the authorities as tricks of the trade. Sure enough Pemra’s (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) sword came down swiftly and the show was soon history, but not before it caused an uproar in the small world of local radio. ‘Doc’ Rafat Siddiqi explains the station’s wild ride.
“The station was launched last Ramazan. We want to target the 14-26 year-old age group. With our target audience, we consider ourselves the number one station. As for expansion, FM is always local. The needs of Karachi are entirely different to the needs of Lahore or Islamabad. For example Abrar-ul-Haq may be very popular in Punjab, but how many shows does he do in Karachi? Networking on a FM station has no point.”
Any room for improvement, or is it a perfect formula?
“FM stations may have been launched in Pakistan in 1995, but none of those stations played the role of building a FM infrastructure here. There’s no FM culture here. Only ourselves and City89 are moving in the direction of an FM culture. Out of the old stations, you’ll find them running cricket commentary, which is pointless. How can you have cricket commentary on a FM station? I think none of the old stations had any idea of differentiating between a FM, AM or Short Wave station. They were running an AM station on the FM band.”
Asked whether the station’s content had posed any problems, the good doctor had this to say:
“To date, I don’t think we’ve ever had to drop a call because of rudeness or vulgarity. I’m very happy with the youth of Karachi because they know where their limits are. That’s why we had to shut down the Mani and Azfar show. We kept reminding them that since we’ve got the liberty to broadcast, we should be thankful to Pemra and the government for it. We haven’t had this sort of liberty for the past 20 years or more. We should have freedom but we should also have responsibility attached. Mani and Azfar are two very talented guys, but I think somewhere down the line they forgot what the limits were. That’s why Radioactive 96 took the show off air.”
Apna Karachi 107: FM 107, preferring to call themselves by their Urdu call-letters Aik Sau Saat, instead of ‘One Oh Seven,’ the station is one of the strongest contenders on the FM block as it cuts across class boundaries, appealing to both the westernized youth and more Urdu medium listeners. Though 107 started off quite strong on the strength of slick promos and crisp programming (it was also the first station on the block after 100 and 101) the channel has suffered somewhat from a slowdown and a drop in programming quality. Perhaps this can be attributed to growing pains. Athar Raza Ajnabi, Production Manager at the station, delineates the 107 philosophy.
“FM 107 went on air on September 18, 2003. There was a great risk when we launched the station as there were two established stations already operating in Karachi. So the only way we could make ourselves distinct was to play around with our programming. Our strategy has always been to attract the masses, as it is impossible to be successful without appealing to the masses.
“Like our name says, we want to reach out to the whole of Karachi. I think the area where the station needs most improvement is music. Each station has a budget and since our budget is a little limited, we need to devote more efforts to improving our music section. As for our main strength, I think that lies in outdoor broadcasting. We try to cover all the major events of the city, and this station was the pioneer of breaking news on FM radio in Pakistan.”
Radio One 91: Owned by an advertising agency, 91 looks all set to be top dog. Their music selection is by far the best out of the lot and their DJs are pretty affable, though a few seem positively wooden in their on-air demeanour. If they overcome their weaknesses — mainly dead air and talking over songs — they have the chutzpah to give both the established FM order as well as the flashy newcomers a run for their money.
Images tried approaching Asif Ghazali, former chief of FM 100, now managing Radio One’s affairs, multiple times to get his feedback on this report, but Mr Ghazali never returned our calls, nor did he honour his commitment for an interview, which he had agreed to.
Mast FM 103: As far as presentation goes, Mast FM 103 ranks at the bottom of the barrel, somewhere below 100 and 101. Its programming is largely unimaginative, its DJs artificial — some with a penchant for continuously talking over songs — while others love to cackle in between numbers to ensure listeners suffer minor seizures. While its start was promising, it quickly slipped down to where it currently stands. The only thing going for it was the hourly five-minute BBC Urdu news updates, which are now a thing of the past thanks to Pemra’s command. Again, Images approached the station twice, yet both times we were quite indifferently given a multitude of excuses. It seemed the station had no interest in talking to the press, judging by the coarseness of their behaviour. Mast FM 103 needs major overhauling if it intends to stick around in the radio business.
After 10 years in Pakistan FM has charged up local listeners and become a viable format, though much work still needs to be done. There is the issue of pitiful remuneration for on-air and technical staff, as most stations take on students who have a hunger for the mike and are willing to work for next to nothing. Also, the issue of copyright protection for both foreign and local artists stands, as one doubts musicians are paid a single paisa of royalty for having their songs spun on the radio. These issues need to be addressed, tomorrow if not today, if FM is serious about its role in the national cultural milieu.
**‘Yeh Radio Pakistan hai’**
The grand old man, with its majestic, though crumbling Karachi headquarters on M. A. Jinnah, has almost called it a day. Launched on August 14, 1947 as the Pakistan Broadcasting Service with two stations in Pakistan — Lahore and Peshawar — what would later be known as Radio Pakistan, could be an endangered species if immediate steps are not taken to upgrade the national network and bring it in to the 21st century. Mr Nisar Memon, Station Director, PBC Karachi, tells us what it’s all about.
“Perhaps peoples’ psyche of tuning into radio has changed. I belong to the generation that was very much into radio, may be because we didn’t have any other option. Nowadays when you buy a radio set, they don’t even have a Short Wave band. It’s just FM and AM. A time will come when even AM will be wiped out. It’s tough to maintain the AM transmitters as Radio Pakistan is not a moneymaking organization. It is what I call a ‘government NGO.’ We are often told that we spend too much, even though we do not earn a lot, but it has to be done keeping in mind the national interest.”
Has AM become a solely rural phenomenon, with city dwellers only interested in FM?
“No, because FM will now also become a rural phenomenon as Radio Pakistan has decided to spread FM transmitters all over the interior of Pakistan. It all comes down to quality. People want to listen to good quality, stereo broadcasts. If you ask me, AM’s future seems a little dark.”
Has Radio Pakistan taken emergency measures to stave off an early demise? After all, even in the first world AM and FM stations co-exist.
“I think here it comes down to finances. Right now maintenance of the AM stations is costing us a lot of money. Since commercialism has become the new conventional wisdom, we are no exception.”
Though the dark clouds of uncertainty taint AM’s horizon, Nisar Memon does lament the fact that if Radio Pakistan goes under, its position as a platform for live music will be irreplaceable.
“It was Radio Pakistan’s unwritten responsibility to patronize musicians. Within our limited resources, we tried to accommodate artists to the best of our ability. We acted as a nursery for artists, and some legendary names have passed through the halls of Radio Pakistan. About 10 years ago all that stopped and it was a great cultural setback. How can we revive that? I think we’ll have to go back to the government for additional grants. Now, we manage to organize mehfils once in a while, but we need to re-institute the patronage of artists as a regular practice.”
mabrook if you got till here. :D
source: dawn images
