tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post509403662670107912..comments2023-10-28T17:24:41.752+05:00Comments on Cafe Pyala: The Economics of Pakistan's Electronic MediaXYZhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17120968316026139059noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-42739662913698141992012-03-22T12:44:15.691+05:002012-03-22T12:44:15.691+05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Vote for Faisalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09917914653944228116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-69072834439740722062012-03-22T12:41:54.116+05:002012-03-22T12:41:54.116+05:00GOOD ,keep it up !
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pak...GOOD ,keep it up !<br /><a href="www.facebook.com/pages/Vote-For-Faisal/256525107722322/" rel="nofollow"> vote for faisal</a><br /><br />Regards <br /><a href="www.faisalsakhibutt.com/" rel="nofollow"> pakistani politician of islamabad</a>Vote for Faisalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09917914653944228116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-8827029709443797512010-10-02T13:09:09.771+05:002010-10-02T13:09:09.771+05:00thanks for sharing very nice
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www.rajaservi...thanks for sharing very nice<br />regards<br />www.rajaservices.webs.com<br />best online job solutionsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-28848912056130001692010-09-23T12:16:19.523+05:002010-09-23T12:16:19.523+05:00I'm writing from Aurora magazine.
In his art...I'm writing from Aurora magazine. <br /><br />In his article, Riaz ul Hassan says:<br /><br />"Aurora did not provide any details about break up of TV ad spend in response of our request..."<br /><br />Just wanted to clarify that we don't recall receiving a request from Mr Hassan on this subject.MLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03450167872700965982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-60194268778136339252010-09-23T00:05:45.202+05:002010-09-23T00:05:45.202+05:00Good post and good of Viewpoint to take up the mat...Good post and good of Viewpoint to take up the matter. If the Express Group is so flush with cash, as Monkey (above) says, it is indeed odd that I hear it is losing some of its best writers due to lack of sufficient payment. Pyala---how about a post on that?know it allnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-11549935098838806302010-09-22T19:23:25.672+05:002010-09-22T19:23:25.672+05:00This is completely unrelated to the post but you&#...This is completely unrelated to the post but you've been mentioned by George Fulton in an op-ed for Tribune :P.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-46630626141928670532010-09-22T15:39:22.514+05:002010-09-22T15:39:22.514+05:00Well there are errors in this study, and quite bas...Well there are errors in this study, and quite basic ones, Billion is 1,000 million not 100 million, and break even cost covers variable cost not fixed costAhmadnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-35637260754401368652010-09-21T03:01:05.316+05:002010-09-21T03:01:05.316+05:00Firstly, those stats is a piece of crap
Agree with...Firstly, those stats is a piece of crap<br />Agree with K without a T and Raza<br />Disagree with TLW.<br />It is true that most of the channels are owned by private companies. As far as eye television network is concerned, which owns hum, masala, 360 etc.. their stats are correct and one should have no doubt about the revenue generated and expenditure incurred by the company on those channels because the company is regularly being audited by a well known audit firm.<br />Details of revenue generation can be seen on manual annual report- note 23 in the "notes to the accounts" section.<br />I would have contributed more had the notes were available on the financials of eye tv ltd for the year 08-09.<br />For tv channels like geo, being owned by private company, i cannot comment as the annual report is unavailable but i can only say one thing that "Independent Media Corporation" which owns geo tv owes RS. 1.68 billion to FBR. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Media_Corporation )osama atharhttp://twitter.com/oa204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-74705935948356633172010-09-20T15:31:20.614+05:002010-09-20T15:31:20.614+05:00I agree with kay-without-a-tea. For instance Expre...I agree with kay-without-a-tea. For instance Express has very solid financial backing - the Lakson group. Plus they are the only group with a newspaper and a tv channel in both English and Urdu...if efficiently managed, I do believe that this means that they can significantly reduce the cost of each respective product.<br /><br />Small channels...I don't believe they spend Rs40 million per month...just look at Vibe and Metro, the quality of their programming and the production value...if Rs40m buys that then they are clearly very inefficiently managed.Monkeynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-29410110257296127512010-09-20T08:49:22.160+05:002010-09-20T08:49:22.160+05:00Pyala's articles aren't appearing in the n...Pyala's articles aren't appearing in the newsfeed section of its fans facebook pages.The administrators of the blog should take the necessary corrective actions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-58519001047173629432010-09-20T03:31:06.254+05:002010-09-20T03:31:06.254+05:00That's an excellent point some of the media g...That's an excellent point some of the media groups must save a lot by the dual use of media and print journalists. I suppose that is a major factor for Jangs crossover success and DAWNS failure. The former tapped into its existing resources and created a market leader, the latter was a market leader in print that tried to replicate the same assuredness in media and failed.takhalusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-25416100447468880572010-09-20T03:11:19.619+05:002010-09-20T03:11:19.619+05:00Hey Cafe Pyala, thanks for broaching the topic of ...Hey Cafe Pyala, thanks for broaching the topic of the economics of our local media. First off, I have to point out that I have trouble trusting this gentleman's thesis because he uses conspiratorial language along the lines of "mysterious sources". Seriously. There is a limit to how much conspiracy mongering a person can stand.<br /><br />Asad-ur-Rehman may have the closest "true" approximation. My personal assessment is that there is a lot of undeclared money sloshing around Pakistan. If that means that someone wants to set up a TV channel to "impress" their equally super rich friends, then no problem on that front. Simultaneously, the statistical discrepancies this 'Counterpoint' article is based on reminded me that three countries, the US, China and Saudi Arabia have something more than "normal" interests in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. These countries have their domestic lobbies in Pakistan that advocate indirectly for further interaction with each of these countries. To see it's interaction with the local media, I can just point to an instance when Najam Sethi said that Pakistani journalists sometimes have a tendency to sit on reports of corruption emanating from Chinese projects, even by Chinese individuals. Sethi said this had to do with a personal bias amongst journalists that China has caused Pakistan less damage than the United States.<br /><br />Coming back to the article, his line on Rs 40 million being needed to run one channel per month, can mean that Pakistan's combined 32 channels have an annual expenditure of 32 x Rs 40 million = Rs 1.28 Billion per month. That's US$15,035,827 per month. My God. You're asking for $15 million in a country with a population of 180,000,000? For an entire industry, in 2010? That's done faster than you can say done.<br /><br />And most of our media is concentrated in Karachi. What about the money being generated across the rest of Pakistan? In Punjab outside Lahore and Pindi? In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan? In FATA and Gilgit Baltistan? Smuggling across from Afghanistan? From Iran? Of course there's undeclared money in our system. And it's not government security bureaucrats, or white men, or Arab men, or Chinese men sponsoring these channels. The story of undeclared money in Pakistan is an entire series of books that can be written.<br /><br /><b>Postscript:</b>And oh yes, I just remembered something. Do all y'all remember how a decade ago they used to call journalists (after <i>lifafa</i> artists), a bunch of blackmailers? Maybe some people in our media industry are not so much reporting the story, as they are sitting on it, in exchange for favours, monetary, or otherwise?<br /><br />Discussing the entire topic of money in Pakistan is like asking to go down the rabbit hole.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-89960299136084507192010-09-20T02:41:29.633+05:002010-09-20T02:41:29.633+05:00Assuming the graph is correct: GEO Network have 24...Assuming the graph is correct: GEO Network have 24 percent share ( GEO News 12%, Geo Entertainment 7% and Geo Sports 5%) in the Rs 13.374 billion tv add spends during the year last financial year. This means Geo recieved more than Rs 2.5billion rupees per year or Rs 208 million per month. So if Rs 40 million is the bench mark than Geo is earning about 5.2percent higher. Or if we divide this Rs 208 million equally among the three channels (Geo News, Geo Supper, and Geo Entertainment) than all three channels are recieving about Rs 60 million per month, about Rs 20 million higher than the average requirement of Rs 40 million.<br />I think problem is with small channels. Big channels will survive because their costs is much lower than their earning. There is a saying in the market, if a Seth say it is in facing losses: it means profit is there but it is lower than last year, it doesn't mean they are not earning profit. When they stop earning profit they declare the company bankrupt.<br />I think it's the phony crises of big media houses to make labor market flexible that will reduce cost of hiring a good professiona and that will narrate in doubling profits.Razanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-71587944165835627892010-09-20T01:36:25.213+05:002010-09-20T01:36:25.213+05:00You should also take into consideration the fact t...You should also take into consideration the fact that most of the big channels also have major publications, such as English and Urdu dailies and monthly or fortnightly magazines(Geo, Dawn etc). Maybe they are using the concept of loss leaders to compensate for the deficit from the channels, hoping that the advertising sector would pick up soon. And given the recent gold prices, I dont think ARY would have much of a problem to keep functioning (re: ARY Gold subsidiary).<br /><br />And as someone above also mentioned, that they do get subscriptions from the audience in UK,USA,Middle East etc. I can say from personal experience, that we had to pay a higher charge for having Geo News through our Sky Box in London.<br /><br />And then, we all know, even if nobody says it out loud, the MNAs and other politicians must be paying these channels for saying certain stuff and not saying the other; for analysing an issue from a certain perspective etc. <br /><br />Given the fact that media has infiltrated the Pakistani consciousness as a cancer, its going to be hard to confront them with these financials and tell them to be fair. But nonetheless, I think this issue should be debated and what better place than the free-er than thou blogosphere! <br />Keep up the good work! =)kay-without-a-teehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11488443789719151849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-27287881969581378082010-09-20T00:21:30.177+05:002010-09-20T00:21:30.177+05:00Don't the channels also get subscription and/o...Don't the channels also get subscription and/or licensing fees for broadcasts in the Middle East and the US and UK, as well as advertising in those markets? Of course this would be limited to the most popular channels. From what I have heard from someone who worked at a TV channel, this cashflow can be be significant.<br /><br />I'd add that some of the methodology in the article is quite shoddy - e.g. dividing the pie of ad-spending on private tv channels equally across the 28 private channels.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-70974841268805897792010-09-19T17:52:37.867+05:002010-09-19T17:52:37.867+05:00As someone who has had considerable professional s...As someone who has had considerable professional stake the media economy of Pakistan from advertising point of view, and also as someone who has worked on the media side as well, these stats do NOT look quite far from real. You have to understand there will never be an agreement on these stats by various sources who estimate these, but the differences are not that wide.<br /><br />The most interesting fact in the media in Pakistan, however, is that about 40% of the TV content on air in Pakistan is news. In most cases live news. You will not find this anywhere in the world. Primarily because it is the entertainment channels that attract the bulk of advertising revenues, and viewership indeed. <br /><br />First of all, the cost of running a TV channel in this article, is slightly over estimated. That sort of partially mathematically distorts the point the writer is trying to make. Secondly you have to understand that news channels perhaps do not seek return on investment in terms of direct advertising revenues alone. There are other sources of return, political clout being just one of them. And this is a fact that is not unique to Pakistan.<br /><br />The point about "mysterious" funding may be right, but perhaps not rightly made. For the way it is currently made almost instantly points the reader to a conclusion that these channels are being funded by "bara bhai amreeka", or that there is an obvious "agency ka hand" in this all. A perception that is by all means a by product of this very phenomenon of news channels itself. Whilst this saheb bahadur factor may be at work, it is certainly not funding all the deficit of the industry that the writer has pointed out.<br /><br />It may not be very difficult to analyse the sources of funding of these channels if you closely look at the ownership of these channels. Some of these are subsidised by the sister concerns that are entertainment media, and some by a bumper crop on a chowdhary saheb's land who, as someone in the above comments also suggested, likes to tell people that he owns a channel. Wether that chowdhary saheb is being manipulated by someone is a different question altogether and the answer to that imay very well be yes. Some of these channels are under tremendous financial pressure, Dawn news becoming an Urdu news channel is definitely something you would have never expected from Haroon House ever- but a sign of the fact that money does matter. <br /><br />Pakistani electronic media is not a bubble, it does need a bit of correction though. For the literacy rates that we have, and the penetration of TV, the distribution of advertising moneys across TV and Print also needs correction. One of the reasons why TV revenues have not grown in percentage share of adspend terms is that these channels fuel what we call negative inflation- by selling as much air time as they can, on as little sums of moneys as possible. By providing almost an infinite supply, at decreasing price points. Growth is not likely in such environment and a correction will happen.<br /><br />I will stop now, before this comment beats the original post in length, but look forward to some good interaction. I have also been out of the Pakistani market for quite some time, so may not have a great grip on some realities and would love to hear an informed point of view.Asad ur Rehmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04551722370320087510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-62821031294310637452010-09-19T17:39:35.615+05:002010-09-19T17:39:35.615+05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Asad ur Rehmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04551722370320087510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-29828669731705735102010-09-19T16:19:05.748+05:002010-09-19T16:19:05.748+05:00i agree the financing behind pakistani media is ki...i agree the financing behind pakistani media is kind of mysterious.. plus the salaries of the news castersBiyahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05608313269348989496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-69455387951445667222010-09-19T15:41:00.114+05:002010-09-19T15:41:00.114+05:00the stats in this report are so haphazard, over-la...the stats in this report are so haphazard, over-lapping and badly organized that it's almost impossible to glean a clear picture.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110720279777344316.post-35306147584455795662010-09-19T04:44:55.294+05:002010-09-19T04:44:55.294+05:00fact: a lot of media groups used to be set up for ...fact: a lot of media groups used to be set up for prestige esp English..<br /><br />The whole revenue generated is quite new..but u discount the expatriate appetite for media?takhalusnoreply@blogger.com