Pakistan Television (PTV) earns record profit of Rs 322m
ISLAMABAD- The Pakistan Television Corporation earned a record profit of Rs 322 million in the year 1999-2000, said Managing Director PTV Yousaf Baig Mirza. Addressing a press conference at the Conference Room of PTV Center, Islamabad, Yousaf Baig Mirza said only four years ago, the PTV was facing a loss of Rs 148.13 million. But in 1997-98, it earned a profit of Rs 38 million while last year the profit amount reached Rs 297 million.
Giving break-up, he said this year, the PTV’s income from advertisement is Rs 1,875 million which was Rs 1,692 million last year while in 1996-97, the PTV’s earnings from advertisement was only Rs 1,010 million. Moreover, the PTV received a record Rs 613 million as licence fee this year, which is almost double than the previous years. Last year, the PTV could only collect RS 347m as licence fee.
He said keeping in view the profit and hard work of the employees, the PTV administration has decided to raise the salaries of all the employees from Group-1 to Group-6. Yousaf Baig Mirza hailed the decision of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) of cancelling licence of the Star TV Network. He said it was the major demand of the PTV for the last one year or so. He said the Star TV should not be allowed without any policy and conditionalities. In India, the Star TV Network was only allowed when it made an investment of about Rs 400 million in that country, he added.
When asked about PTV’s launching of cable TV network, he said: “we want channels distribution and we are not interested in laying cables. We want to provide 50 to 100 channels to our viewers on demand”, he added.
When asked about opening of private channels, he said the PTV is ready to compete with them, provided a uniform policy is applied on these private channels as well as PTV. The Managing Director also gave details of the PTV’s Eid programmes. He said the PTV also earned a record profit of Rs 60 million only through its Eid programmes. He said for the first time, the Eid programmes will be telecast for six days on all the three channels. During these six days, 19 plays, 13 stage shows, 10 feature films, six music shows and 12 children shows will be telecast. He said a grand show will be held at the Karachi beach on December 31. However, the show will not be telecast live due to the new year night, he said.
Source: The News
Date:12/23/2000
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