Television Broadcasting

Television

GEO NEWS

Introduction:

GEO, the first South Asian Urdu language channel to provide content comparable with world-class television broadcasters was established in May 2002. Geo is the fastest growing TV Channel in Pakistan with ratings exceeding all satellite delivered TV channels in the market.

Owned by the Jung Group, Geo mainly caters the B class whereas their print media, the newspaper Inkalab is for the C and D class people, primarily truck and rickshaw drivers who are more interested in the looking at entertaining pictures and useless piece of news which will never make it to the headlines on the mainstream media. E.g., a donkey cart owner punching a police driver, scandals related to Meera, advertisements and pictures of Punjabi movies, etc.

Licenses Issued By the PEMRA:

There are two types of Broadcasting Licenses which Geo has.

Satellite TV License: Available to transmit within Pakistan and across.

Landing right License: Geo Super has this license for 4 years in order to be shown in Pakistan, as it is owned by someone in Dubai. They pay $500 a day to the Pakistani government for continuous transmission. But recently they have been banned by PEMRA and that’s one controversy on its own.

Success rate:

-Only two channels so far in Pakistan targeted the A class but they failed because only 3.9% is A class in Pakistan who prefer international news channel like BBC and CNN over local English news channel. Dawn News English which shut down and Express News English who are hoping for Geo news to take over but they are highly mistaken because Geo news will not.

-They are efficient in reaching their destination in catastrophes. They make sure they send a back-up too. In the Air Blue crash they sent 6 satellite vans as back-up to ensure competency.

-In case of some wrong data or some major human error during a news bulletin, Geo try to rectify but in certain cases, there’s only 22 minute influence time in telecasting media after which the populace forgets the wrong information.

Target Audience:

Normally they target public figures, actors and actresses and bring their private life in the spotlight. Because according to the survey and research done by Geo, even international news channel follow the same criteria and scrutinize ever angle of public figures and prey on them.

And similarly on Saturday April 22 2011, instead of airing their most favorite show "Hum sab ummeed say hain", Geo cancelled the show and started covering the death of Pakistan’s most famous comedian cum actor, Moin Akhtar. To them and their audience, the death report was more significant to broadcast than 'Hum sab ummeed say hain'.

Pays Cost Of Bluntness:

With their candid attitude, Geo get threat calls from various government officials too. Recently, Geo received a call from government representative to stop the director of 'Hum sab ummeed say hain' to shoot the mimicry of the Chinese Prime Minister.

HUM Television Network:

Origin:

The idea of introducing an amalgamation of entertainment and enlightenment led to the formation of this channel. The head Sultana Siddiqui noticed the dearth of appropriate and original entertainment, and thus began the process initiation of a new channel. 'The aim was to revive the genuine Pakistani drama and to merge modernity with our own cultural values' (Nayyer Rubab-creative head HUM television)

Ownership:

Group of people hold the reins, it is actually a public limited organization and its stocks can be freely bought and sold at the Stock Exchange.

Transmission:

HUM TV is shown across the globe by the African beam and the UK/Us beam respectively. The first transmits signals to the African countries while the latter reaches North America, England and the adjoining areas.

Goal:

As underlined by Mrs. Sultana Siddiqui, the creative head of hum television, the role of Hum and what it has been trying to pursue includes, ''illuminating social issues like forced marriages, feudalism, illiteracy, drug abuse, and sexual harassment effectively". As mentioned above, the idea behind most dramas is to educate the public and create awareness.

Codes and conventions:

Television has become a significant part of almost everyone’s lives and reaches more people than any other socializing institution. This has led, however, to a common belief that television is an activity that requires little or no skill, and understanding it is an intrinsic quality, embedded in us from birth. That’s where we are all wrong. We have to learn the codes and conventions of the medium, in order to understand it and benefit from it, similar to learning to read or speak a verbal language.

Codes are collections or groupings of signs, [which construct and represent meaning]. Conventions are the ‘rules’ which organize signs into a code, and produce meaning through encoding and decoding. (Lealand & Martin, 2001)

Level of codes:

As with all the television genres which exist, News and Current Affairs are distinguished by:

Level One Code: Reality

All television content is already constructed (encoded) by social codes, which include appearance, dress, speech, accent etc. News personnel (reporters, presenters) are customarily around thirty, well-groomed, well-spoken and well-educated.

Level Two Code: Representation

Social codes are further encoded by technical codes, such as camera angles, lighting, editing. These codes, in turn, transmit the conventional representational codes which shape and determine the structure and meaning of narrative, action, character. As in the authoritative news presenter addressing us directly, explaining events within 50-60 second ‘news stories’, in an atmosphere of importance and urgency.

Level Three code: Ideology

Social codes, technical codes and conventional representational codes are organized (by convention) into ideological codes (familiar, socially acceptable codes) of individualism, national interest, gender, race and class, power relationships etc

For example: An ideological assumption determines what is ’news’-- a focus on the 52 people killed in the London bombings, rather than the estimated 25,000+ killed in Iraq; language choice determines our responses to events e.g. suicide bombers rather than martyrs.

Role Being Exercised By the Broadcasting Sector:

From the arranged meetings with the media personnel and learning the fundamentals from them, we can deduce substantially if not plenty.

1.       First, we realized that broadcasting sector does enjoy influence for the fact that it encompasses and translates most of all the thoughts, notions, propositions, and guidelines for betterment in to entertainment programs. These programs have these contextual messages implicitly evident within them, to be perceived by those who can determine.

2.       Secondly, even when the general perception that we get of radio is that it is not listened to with as much keenness and interest as before. this was proved as just a presumption because one of the people we met at FM 103 ( nicknamed Billoo bhai and fiqa), actually told us that their channel has been banned thrice already and PEMRA justified that by deeming their content to be 'provocative, inciting, unfiltered and anti-government'.

3.       Even as we consider the television, we all notice that channels like Geo news, Express have faced a ban and withdrawal of licensor ship in the past. The ban was imposed on the reasoning that these channels were going out of their way to analyze the events taking place in the political sphere. The bans have lasted for a number of days, until finally PEMRA was forced to reissue them licenses.

Transparency:

Questions regarding recruitment of employees were readily answered by the radio heads and they unhesitant told us that deployment is done purely on the basis of skill, talent, and the ability to engage the audience and physical appearance plays almost minimal role in it. When asked the same of the people in the television sector, they carefully avoided that question, even though, the creative head of Hum television, was insistent that 'deployment is purely skill based'. 

References:

How stuff works. Retrieved from http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/components-direct-broadcasting-system

Broadcasting: definition. As cited in http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/broadcasting.html

The debate over Federal funding. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=aHYPERLINK

Information about PTV. Retrieved from http://www.forumpakistan.com/information-about-ptv-tHYPERLINK

Public Broadcasting. Retrieved from www.congressionaldigestdebates.com

Noam Chomsky- Saying what 'Media don't want us to hear'. Retrieved from http://www.fair.org/media-beat/011206.html

Comparing Public and Commercial broadcasting-Banducci. Retrieved from www.banducci.com/eumedia/VanDriest%20Media%20Paper.doc

Commercial vs public television. Retrieved from  http://www.ehow.com/facts_5785803_commercial-television-vs_-public-television.html#ixzz1LOWQlQJQ

The difference between Non-commercial and commercial fm broadcasting. Retrieved from

http://www.christianradiohome.com/comm-noncomm.asp

Katie Harris (2002), ‘Is Television Like a Language Which We Read? Retrieved from

Radio Broadcasting

BROADCASTING

Definition:  

"Broadcasting is the spreading of an advertising message or signal over a wide area without specific targeting. Unlike narrowcasting, broadcasting employs a shotgun approach in dissemination of information."

Broadcasting Types:

1.Satellite: This type of broadcasting distributes content using a signal that is transmitted across a satellite network.

2. Cable: Cable broadcasting uses cables to transmit content from the cable companies to customer’s homes.

3. Terrestrial: Terrestrial broadcasting uses transmitters located on the ground across service areas.

Genres of Broadcasting:  

1. Commercial Broadcasting:

It is generally based on the practice of airing television advertisements for profit, in contrast to public media which eschews most or all paid advertising.

2. Public Broadcasting:

Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets that receive some or all of their funding from the public. Public broadcasters may receive their funding from individuals through voluntary donations, a specific charge such as a television license fee, or as direct funding by the state.

RADIO

FM 105

History
FM 105 started in 2005. There are 15 stations all over Pakistan, and its headquarter is located in Karachi. It is a commercial radio station with 24/7 broadcasting. Its main focus is market model.

Purpose
The purpose of FM 105 is to create awareness via shows. Depending upon the time slots, shows are dedicated to various infotainments.

Local Stations
each city has its own network, that is, Karachites won’t be able to listen to the transmission aired in Lahore. Irrespectively, there are certain shows which are put on the network as well and can be listened to by everyone across the country.

Schedule of broadcasting:
The broadcasting schedule is devised as per the timings. It is done by FPC (Fixed Point chart).


8 a.m. – 10 a.m.: During early morning hours when people are generally setting off to workplaces/schools/colleges, ‘morning drive time’ is aired.


10 a.m. – 1 a.m.: ‘Ladies hours’ include a two hour transmission just for the purpose of entertaining housewives. It includes programs like zubaida apa, cooking shows, beauty shows, family problem based shows, health and awareness shows, etc.


1 a.m. – 5 p.m.: These programs involve soothing, mellow music playing and a generally mild orientation.


5 p.m. – 7 p.m.: The mood of the programs changes again as the working men are heading back to their homes, recreational areas, etc., and thus the mobile audience receives traffic and news updates, which are easy to comprehend. At the very same, they get to listen to soft music while driving.


8 p.m. onwards to midnight and beyond: Request shows for everyone or back to back music for all those heartbroken university going souls.

Eligibility:
There are no specific eligibility criteria for recruitment as an RJ, but they should be able to exercise certain characteristics like tolerance, patience, etc. as per need and should possess substantial interpersonal skills to enable them to get their thoughts across effectively. They should be bilingual i.e. they should be able to communicate properly in English and Urdu.

Regulations:
Since the market that is being catered is not very educated, the check and balance that is usually imposed upon these RJs is low. Moreover, in stations like FM 105, there is no production by a central authority. The RJs produce their show themselves so they only need to ensure that they keep an ethical limit to the content they produce, and the rest is all acceptable.

Ratings:
The ratings are determined by the inflow of messages, call logs, and tracking users logged in through the streaming facility. Moreover, the more ads the radio station receives is also a measure to evaluate its popularity.

Departments:
There are several departments that work along in collaboration:

Technical department: It usually deals with the setup and transmission equipment. It takes care of technical issues such as sound problems, etc.

 Programming department: It designs the patterns of the shows and their time slots.

News department: This department deals with the preparation of news items that is provided every now and then. It is allocated around five minutes to brief the listeners during the drive time or rush hours with traffic updates.

Marketing or Sales department: Brands hunting. They usually look up for sponsors and branded shows and formulate flashy and engaging marketing campaigns.

Producer: Every show has a producer who checks the format of the show and other minor details. At times, some RJs are their own producer as well.

The air time of commercials:
The value of the commercials is determined by the money value per second. An ad campaign starts for 12 days and then it is decided what time to air the ad again.


Fm 103

Introduction:
The people who had no previous background in radio broadcasting started the radio station in the year 2005 in order to aware the masses about the disorder and turmoil in the state due to the situation. Caters to every class, may it be upper-middle or mediocre.

When first introduced in 2005, it was aimed at doing something different and innovative; therefore it came up with the idea of mast fm, infotainment channel. A platform for all: young or old and entertainment for everybody with versatile and diverse programs. It has been a top radio channel with 6 awards as its credit since its inception. In short it has always remained on the top, that is, masses demand is always on a peak.Currently they are broadcasting in 4 cities: Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Multan. But since 6 years it’s been transmitted across Pakistan as well.

Surveys & Ratings
Marketing managers check revenues and discuss popularity graphs through social networking websites like Facebook, SMS, live calls, ads etc.

The ratings are determined by the inflow of messages, call logs and tracking users logged in through the streaming facility. Moreover, the more ads the radio station receives is also a measure to evaluate its popularity.

Commercials:
They spend 20%-33% time in broadcasting commercials; rest of their dedication is towards the audience. It was mentioned in the Ad log for April 22 2011 that 204 minutes of ads were run and approximately 15 million a month from commercials was earned.

And once when one of their RJs wasn’t present in Pakistan as he was on a tour abroad and was desperately needed, so the manager called him up in Chicago to broadcast live show and the RJ did a show from Chicago while he was on a move from one place to another. Internationally it is also available via streaming online.

Reasons for the Popularity:
“We cater 34% of the population, yet we are successful. Our RJs are like the captain of the ship, who deals and addresses all multiple-need of the populace. Plus we are radical, we don’t hold prejudices against anyone nor do we discriminate. We are open-minded and accommodating. And we are the only radio apart from radio Pakistan which broadcasts in almost all the languages in Pakistan.” said the Country Manager, Zulfiqar Ali Shah.

Current Conditions of the Radio:
In view of the penetration, sweep, pervasiveness, accessibility, cost effectiveness and convenience, its identity can never be lost. At present, there are more than 116 Private Local Entertainment Radio Stations Regulated by PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) working actively in Pakistan, which have helped a lot in the reincarnation of radio broadcasting. New technology like RDS (Radio Data System) and Frequency Modulation has enabled radio industry to meet new technology changes.