12 more TV channel licenses: PEMRA
ISLAMABAD – 12 more satellite TV channel licences will be awarded in the second phase of the process currently underway.
This was disclosed by M. Noor Sagheer Khan, Executive Member, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) in an exclusive interview with the Pakistan Press International (PPI) here on June 5.
He said there is a potential of 36 satellite TV Channels in the country by 2010, as per estimates based on the existing and prospective subscription and advertisement revenues.
Sagheer Khan said the country has a potential to generate investment in the satellite TV to the tune of Rs2600 million and the potential to employee around 4,000 people in the country in the coming years.
The PEMRA Executive Member said the satellite TV network uses the satellite TV broadcast technology via a satellite orbiting its region.
The programming is up-linked or hosted from ground stations and relayed from a satellite or a group of satellites in a particular region.
Individual households catch this signal either through satellite dishes or through cable networks.
He said presently 18 satellite TV channels having Pakistani content are being broadcast with different names including foreign band channels.
Answering a question, Sagheer Khan said the cable TV is the largest and fastest growing medium among the country’s electronic media adding that there are estimates that some Rs7.28 billion have already been pumped into the sector.
He said the cable business almost grew at the phenomenal rate of 132 percent in the past three to four years.
`While the sector is employing some 30,000 people, cable TV is estimated to have already entered some four million homes’, he added.
The PEMRA executive member said almost all the world TV networks have switched over to decoder, an expensive gadget not within the means of the bulk of people.
However, he said that with just a paltry sum, they could access them all through the agency of Cable TV.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:6/7/2004
” 
” 
” 
” 
