Should Pakistan lift the ban on Indian TV channels?

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
21

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by TomSawyer: *
Ban or no ban. People will get it either legally or on the sly. A whole new industry will start providing additional riches for the Musharaf generals with protected dish franchises.

And these guys want us to join the gas pipeline?
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tommy munney, now that all these channels have become pay channels, so not alot of people can get it. For instance, to get just Sony Ent and TV Asia, one has to buy a 8 foot dish, and pay a hefty annual monthly fee, buy a digital receiver as well. With cable, people can just get 10-15 Indian channels for just Rs. 300 a month, and since that is banned, I dont think anyone can get Indian channels, and furthermore, subscription services to Indian channels have been discontinued. Like it or not, finally the Govt has been successful in making sure Indian channels are not aired in Pakistan. The only thing that is left are Indian movies available in the pirated rental market now.

22

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Spock: *

Like it or not, finally the Govt has been successful in making sure Indian channels are not aired in Pakistan. The only thing that is left are Indian movies available in the pirated rental market now.
[/QUOTE]

that's right and the ban will be effective throught out the next year too because over 20 new private Pakistani channels will be launched.

No one can do anything about the video piracy but that is not the issue as India doesnt make anything from the pirated dvds, vhs and vcds in Pakistani market. The biggest concern was the indian channels in our living room and Pakistani ads on those channels and that problem has been sorted out. Our People's short term memory would come in handy 'cuz in a few they'd completly forget about indian channels. :D

23

Seems like all the pakistani population here wants to keep the ban.. what 95% are these cable people talking about?

Do i smell Indian people bribing/infleucing these cable idiots?

24

But there are many who think that cable TV business needs to be properly regulated and there should be strict implementation of PEMRA rules. President Pakistan Film Producers Association Mian AmjadFarzand says that government should not given in to the cable operators pressure because they are promoting Indian culture here and spoiling the young generation.

That's funny. If Pak film producers didn't turn out such garbage maybe Pakistani viewers wouldn't turn to Indian entertainment in the first place. Now the Pak industry is having to rely on government imposed bans to make sure their shoddy shows get some viewers.

Here's some advice: give people what they want yourself otherwise don't whine if somebody else does instead.

25

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Spock: *

tommy munney, now that all these channels have become pay channels, so not alot of people can get it. For instance, to get just Sony Ent and TV Asia, one has to buy a 8 foot dish, and pay a hefty annual monthly fee, buy a digital receiver as well. With cable, people can just get 10-15 Indian channels for just Rs. 300 a month, and since that is banned, I dont think anyone can get Indian channels, and furthermore, subscription services to Indian channels have been discontinued. Like it or not, finally the Govt has been successful in making sure Indian channels are not aired in Pakistan. The only thing that is left are Indian movies available in the pirated rental market now.
[/QUOTE]

There goes one more freedom

26

I remember over a year ago I was speaking on Gupshup chat with a young female guppy who had recently started work as a teacher in Lahore, teaching a mixed gender class of 7-8 year olds.

She was appalled at the behaviour of the kids - the boys would pretty regularly slap the girls on the posterior.... and the girls would be flattered, not annoyed.

This teacher said that this kind of behaviour did not used to happen during her younger days and felt that it was being caused through easier exposure to the increasingly risque culture promoted by the entertainment industry across the border.

If the Indian entertainment industry still portrayed the values that it did during the 50s, 60s and early 70s, I would probably vehemently oppose the ban as back then both Pakistani socety and Indian society held similar views on acceptable and unacceptable social behaviour and norms.

Nowadays though, India's entertainment industry is becoming more.... 'liberal', for lack of a better word, and insulation such as this ban is required to diminish the effect on Pakistan.

27

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ~MuNiYa~: *

Do i smell Indian people bribing/infleucing these cable idiots?
[/QUOTE]

Excellent research. You should report this finding to the govt.

28

Mr. Extreme,

FYI, the Pakistani entertainment industry has always made the initial attempt to entertain the masses locally, but it has been the governments which have been curbing their development. The governments have mostly done this in order to wag the dog, or to create some sympathy for themselves, yet at the same time destroying the local entertainment and pushing people towards indian entertainment.

Not so long ago, in 1993, Pakistani Pop music was on tops. Nobody cared about Indian film music and everyone was singing "Tanhai" and "Bhangra Rap". Junoon, Vital Signs and Awaz were doing very well too. Indian pop scene was nowhere to be seen at that time. Yet, on the account of the act being unislamic, the govt of Benazir and later Nawaz Sharif systematically tried to destroy the pop groups. They banned the groups, their videos, their appearences, attacked their concerts etc. As a result of that, the standard of Pakistani pop music has gone down significantly. At the same time, India has been building on top of their efforts, and their pop goups and singers are today much more established than ours.

Zia ul Haq did the same thing with the Film Industry in 1980, and that was basically where the film industry of Pakistan went down.

So the thing is that when something is providing entertainment to the masses, let them flourish. If you curb them, then it is going to reduce the standard, and people are going to move towards higher quality entertainment, which the illetrates get from the Indian culture, and the Literates from the western culture. Once people get used to these cultures, then the local indsutry will have to copy them to attract people to themselves. So it is quite possible that even the local industry today will try to mimic the foreigners in order to get the people interested. It becomes a catch 22.

29

Logixlord,

my reply was based on the piece I highlighted from the article from President Pakistan Film Producers Association Mian Amjad Farzand who is calling for a govt ban on Indian channels. And as for Indian movies bringing vulgarity into Pakistani homes as MS is saying, my view is that Pakistani movies are even more vulgar so why not ban them?

30

If you go to places like Dubai, Quatar, Sharjah and whole of Middle East there is a whole new generation of Pakistanis who are grown up on Indian satellite channels, Indian film music etc. If this continues, the animosity between Pakistanis and Indians will come to an end in the next fifty years. Dubai has 4 Indian FM channels and Pakistanis are hooked on to it. Even in US most of the Hindi film theaters are operated by Pakistanis with a very large Pakistani audience.

31

Ban is counterproductive in my opinion. What does it really achieve? It is not necessarily nighttime if one closes his eyes. If Pakistani movie/entertainment industry can produce better programs, we wont need to worry about Indian movies.

In terms of Morality. Kids need to be supervised as to what they watch on TV. It is not a social problem, but a family matter.

I always wondered whether Jihadis and fanatics watched Indian movies? Since we find Indian movies detrimental to our morality.

In addition, I think we should import Egyptian movies. They are really juicy and also in Arabic, our holy tongue.

32

Now Pakistanis will be able to see all the soaps of STAR PLUS. Looks like all Indian channels broadcast from Hongkong will be shown in Pakistan. Now people will be hooked to Saas-Bahu sagas from the Indian channels,

Cable operators call off strike, resume showing private channels

By Hasan Mansoor

KARACHI: The Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (COAP) plugged in their network with the Pakistani private channels on Tuesday as the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) agreed to consider allowing them to show Hong Kong-based channels, said a spokesman for the association.

“We have lifted the ban on GEO, ARY Digital, Indus Vision, CNN, BBC and Fox News after a senior PEMRA official assured us that the government will consider our demand to allow us to show the channels, including the Star network,” Tahir Khan, vice president of the COAP, told the Daily Times.

The COAP office-bearers met the PEMRA official, Saleem Gul, in Karachi. The COAP explained their problems which they were facing due to the ban on the Indian entertainment channels that are famous for their soaps and family entertainment. The association told the PEMRA official that the number of their clientele had reduced drastically since the government imposed the ban on the entertainment channels.

Another meeting between the COAP and PEMRA officials was likely to be held in a couple of days to formally lift the ban on these channels, he said.

Cable operators had begun a weeklong boycott of Pakistan’s private satellite TV channels and foreign news channels to protest the PEMRA ban on showing of Indian entertainment channels.

The private Pakistani channels remained completely off the air on Sunday and Monday in all major cities of Sindh, including Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas and Nawabshah.

Tahir Khan said he received reports that more than 98 percent members of the cable operators’ association boycotted these channels across the country, including Azad Jammu and Kashmir

33

I dont know if anyone cares.... but 200 crore rupees worth of advertising ($60 million) goes to indian channels per year from Pakistan. This money is then taxed by the indian govt, and most of it is used to support their army. Their army then in turn kills our soldiers on the LOC, and occasionally kills innocent civilians in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir villages as well. Not to mention the human rights violations being carried out in Indian Occupied Kashmir. The Indian govt is doing its job, the Indian Army is doing its job; so the problem is with the money flowing out of Pakistani pockets into India.

But hey.... why should we care. As long as we can hear that great new song from a silly Kareena Kapoor movie, admiring which is only the job of mindless geeks, we are happy.

Here I am not even talking about cultural invasion. I am talking about money going out of the country to help the enemy, the logic of which can only be considered sane by the morons.

I reiterate. Until there is peace between the two countries, and at least there are no skirmishes going on between the two armies, this ban should not be lifted. When other businesses between the countries are established, then this ban can be lifted as well. Right now there are only token steps offered by both India and Pakistan for peace, and it may take 10-20 years for peace to come through. Why should Pakistan churn out $500 mil - $1 bil in that timeframe to make the indians better off?

As long as there are 4-5 channels in pakistan, hopefully the quality will keep on improving since there will be competition. The govt just needs to make sure that it does not destroy one network or the other on the account of it being "not purely islamic". Past governments have often used this argument to stop networks which were critical of them, or were just entertaining people and taking them away from the Indian channels.

The indians have not reciprocally banned the Pakistani channels in India. That makes sense, since Indian ads hardly play on Pakistani channels. They can take such a decision becuase it doesnt hurt them economically at all.

34

Ridiculous arguement. The way to stop the violence in Kashmir is for pakistan to stop inciting it. Not by banning entertainment.

35

it's only the hindians who wants the ban to be lifted in this site. so i guess we know what real pakistanis think. don't pay attention to durango, tomsawyer, and "kareem". kuttay to shor machayga, usko shor macha nay do.

36

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by rana no.1: *
it's only the hindians who wants the ban to be lifted in this site. so i guess we know what real pakistanis think.
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The Real pakistani is thinking why can't we at least get some TV shows from China if we can't get it from India. Ever heard Mandarin spoken in a Desi accent?

37

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by rana no.1: *
it's only the hindians who wants the ban to be lifted in this site. so i guess we know what real pakistanis think. don't pay attention to durango, tomsawyer, and "kareem". kuttay to shor machayga, usko shor macha nay do.
[/QUOTE]

You claim to know what real Pakistanis think but if they really thought like that there wouldn't be any need for a ban, they wouldn't tune into Indian channels in the first place. So who exactly are you representing?

38

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by TomSawyer: *

The Real pakistani is thinking why can't we at least get some TV shows from China if we can't get it from India. Ever heard Mandarin spoken in a Desi accent?
[/QUOTE]

totay tomy, yes we real pakistanis are thinking about the chinese channels. actually i will be protesting to the government of pakistan on why we don't have chinese channels. tu mujhe yeh bata, teri "angrezi" ka kya hua. and mr. extreme, you are absolutely right, large portion of pakistan "used" to watch hindian channels. but now as the failed "strike" shows, some people are complaining but majority just don't give a hoot. you know why, because musharraf had the brains to finally liberalize the tv media. now with channels like GEO, Indus, ary, and all the other channels, pakistanis have the freedom to change the channel whenever the khabarnama comes on and starts kissing the govt ass. trust me, if musharraf had banned hindian channels and forced people to watch PTV, then the entire country would be going nuts just about now. LIBERALIZING THE TV MEDIA, ANOTHER GREAT ACHEIVEMENT BY OUR GREAT LEADER MUSHARRAF.

39

Musharraf should do what he thinks is right for the country - not for ailing TV stations. If banning Indian channels ultimately works out for Pakistan - hey more power to you.

But personally I think Indian films and tv channels will always appeal to a large segment of Pakistanis (note I am not mentioning percentages). The difference between Indian and Pakistani entertainment is that there is spice in the former (note I am not saying it is better).

I'm surprised that so many Pakstanis here sound bitter and antagonistic towards the Indian entertainment industry. Frst of all I don't think the industry gets 35% of it's revenue from Pakistan, maybe 5% would be closer. Secondly, how are english channels aiding Pakistani culture and Indian channels destroying it?

I'd be grateful for an answer. :)

40

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by karina: *
how are english channels aiding Pakistani culture and Indian channels destroying it?

I'd be grateful for an answer. :)
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I have the same doubt. Isn't the western culture much more harmful than the Indian culture(and I really don't think there is anything harmful about the Indian culture)?

And whatever "culturally wrong" stuff that airs on Indian channels is an effect of this western culture. Are shows like ** Will and Grace** or The temptation Island more culturally sound than Saas bhi kabhi bahoo thi or MTV bakra?