IT appears Pakistan Television (PTV) stands only for the government and its leaders. This is, perhaps, the only reason that its viewership or rating, in urban areas, is the lowest among all TV channels.

The state TV channel covers only government events. It gives live coverage to ministers’ speeches of little news value and totally ignores even the top opposition leaders and their mammoth public meetings. It gives undue coverage to the ruling personalities, such as the prime minister and the cabinet ministers, rather than the hard news and unbiased comments on political developments.

PTV is losing revenues which it could earn from advertisements, because of its biased policies towards other stakeholders. People want to watch independent channels with wider coverage.

PTV is funded from taxpayers’ money. The money is extracted forcibly and unjustly through the electricity bills. Its raison d’etre or the justification remains unexplained to date. Why should this money be collected and given to the state television to compensate its loss of revenues?

Like many others, this anomaly has been continuing for years.

Salman Siddiqui

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2018