Negligence takes heavy toll
ISLAMABAD — PTV Global is fast losing its viability as the number of over 17,000 PTV subscribers that ensured an income of over $200,000 per month in terms of subscription fee in 2006, has declined to less than 1,400.
PTV started its global transmission in 2003 in collaboration with US-based party under the name of PTV-Prime. It was the first Pakistani channel for the US-Pakistani community and achieved subscription of 40,000 at US $15 per month per subscriber, according to figures available with TheNation. Due to various reasons PTV took over the channel under the name of PTV Global in 2006 and that time PTV subscribers’ number hit 17,000 with an income of $240,000 per month from subscription alone. An agreement was made with a company that was authorised to deduct 50 percent of the income for its services, besides $10,000 to be given to company for transmission services. According to US law, if PTV operated as a foreign company it was also supposed to give 30 percent of its share of income as withholding tax. It has been learnt further that PTV management for not having even a token presence in the US, has been paying 30 percent of its income ever since (which comes to nearly $ 1,500,000 over the past four year). PTV Global (USA) earned $200,000 in November 2006, and after deducting $50,000 PTV shares came down to just $100,000.
Out of that little amount, too, it paid $30,000 as withholding tax and $10,000 as transmission charges, leaving the remaining $60,000 for PTV, sources revealed. While, this income has dropped to mere $100,000 and after deducting 50 percent and 30 percent withholding tax and transmission charges respectively, PTV got only $25,000 in March 2010, the figure available to The Nation further revealed. Reliable sources said that PTV Global has now been included in a bouquet of Pakistani channels and its share from a subscription of 20,000 is only $ 3.75 per subscriber per month. It is worth mentioning here that the issue was highlighted in the board meeting that the revenue and subscription were constantly dropping. The meeting held a couple of days before also discussed that PTV Global was wasting a huge amount in paying taxes, which it could have avoided by setting up a small office in the US. It was criticised that it has made no efforts to produce programmes for the US viewers despite a number of offers.
When contacted, Managing Director (MD) PTV Arshad Khan said that as per previous board meeting, it was decided to identify a new company as soon as possible since the previous company defaulted. While commenting over the numbers of subscribers, he said that PTV-specific subscribers’ number had not declined at all, and the number had increased to 20,000. “Though increase is not at that pace but it is not declining,” he added saying that the issue regarding the office in the US for avoiding tax was not discussed in the board meeting. After making proper feasibility report, he said, it would also be decided.
Source: The Nation
Date:5/17/2010
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