KARACHI, Jan 30: Pakistan Television has decided to stop showing private productions during what is known as the prime time slot.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Thursday that the idea of replacing PTV productions with private productions during the prime time slot was to devote more time to in-house productions. They added that the private productions would be shown during other slots at commercial rates.

The sources pointed out that the decision had been taken by the PTV managing director who had previously decided to show private productions, mostly dramas, during the prime time slot. At the time, the move had been hailed as a positive one aimed at generating more revenue for the state-run television organization.

When contacted, the general manager of the PTV Karachi centre, Manzoor Qureshi, defended the move. He insisted that the revenue obtained through commercials for PTV productions would exceed the amount earned through selling the prime time slot to private productions.

“The decision is obviously based on some calculations. It is expected that PTV would earn more through in-house productions than the private ones,” he said.

The Karachi centre PTV managing director said that PTV offered financial incentives to those producers who managed to achieve targets. “The producer whose serial earns more than the target set by PTV is rewarded. The producer receives 45 per cent of the financial incentive, which is Rs600,000, and the rest is distributed among the entire team, including technicians.”

The sources said that PTV was preparing a policy for those producers who worked for private productions. “It has been decided in principle that PTV producers would be allowed to moonlight. The details of the policy are yet to be worked out, however. In all probability, they will have to leave their PTV job but they will be given assignments from PTV at handsome commissions,” they said.

They pointed out that even at present a producer could go on leave and work for a private production if he agreed to pay 30 per cent of his income to his original organization. “The other condition is that the private production must come to PTV first. If PTV does not want to show it, it could then go to other channels. Over the years a large number of PTV producers have availed themselves of this facility,” they explained.

They said that a large number of private productions would lose a great deal of revenue if they were not telecast on the prime time slot of PTV. “For them the second-best option are private channels, which are not as extensively viewed as PTV.”