Chowrangi

PEMRA is swift to specify a stringent code of conduct for cable channels but it hasn’t anything effective to induce some sense of responsibility and nobleness in cable operators.

Cable operators have become a considerable power in any locality, because of the private channels they run. Its entirely up to them to broadcast anything they want. They play obnoxious movies, vulgar Punjabi stage shows, semi-nude Indian and Pakistani songs and whatever they want. There seems to be no check and balance.

They also run their own advertisement campaign and charge huge sums of money from the advertisers. They bombard every channel with their local and national ads. Ads even appear during the news time and virtually they could appear any time anywhere.

If you are brave enough to contact them in person at their office, you will get real reception, which could range from complete neglect to nasty spanking. They can even physically assault you. In many areas, the cable operations are in the hands of those who are illiterate and after failing in any other fields have come into this. They don’t know a damn about consumer satisfaction, customer retention, human dignity and quality of service. They only know how to play more and more vulgar things, and they only know that they have to collect their monthly cable fee at every 1st.

I happen to experience the cable TV in almost all the big and many small cities of Pakistan, and things are more or less same. People have got a broad choice of channels, but almost all of them are crap except the sports and news channel. And during those useful channels, one has to suffer lots of ads and bad signals.

It is the need of hour that government should leash this growing monster, and put some severe checks on its quality of service. There should be a cable viewer feedback mechanism to PEMRA, so that we the poor have an option to register our tears and sufferings.

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