How One Channel Could Shake Up Pakistan's Media Scene

We don't usually write about entertainment channels of the sitcom / soaps / serials variety (as opposed to entertainment channels of the news / current affairs variety) but there's a new channel airing across Pakistan for about the last two months causing all sorts of waves that is interesting to us for a number of reasons.

 Urdu1's advertising blitz can be seen in magazines and on billboards

For one, Urdu1, as the channel is named, seems to have hooked a substantial number of viewers, which seems to be giving its big-name rivals in the television entertainment business all sorts of palpitations. No doubt a major part of the reason for its sudden popularity is the fact that it is broadcasting some of the most popular Indian soaps, whose ratings on the illegally (but widely) broadcast Indian entertainment channels such as Star Plus and Colors, put to shame ratings of all other Pakistani channels. It is technically able to do this because it is actually not a Pakistani channel (which are subject to far more restrictions regarding Indian content) but a 'foreign channel', based out of Dubai and only having 'landing rights' in Pakistan.

But it is also benefiting from the fact that it still broadcasts most of its programming without the massive commercial breaks that have become the characteristic of Pakistani entertainment channels and which have become the bane of viewers. Unlike Pakistani entertainment channels which offer up their programming in blocks of, often, seven minutes or less, and where an hour of programming can include 22 minutes or more of commercials (also violative of the terms of their licenses, which stipulate no more than three minutes of advertising after every 15 minutes of programming - this stipulation has been challenged by the Pakistan Broadcasters Association in the Sindh High Court where the case is pending), Urdu1 so far has been getting by with running ads mostly at the beginning and end of their content. Viewers, fed up with the extended and excessive commercial breaks on Pakistani channels, seem to have given their approval.

By far the most fascinating part of the programming on this new channel from a sociological point of view, however, is the inclusion of - and unexpected popularity of - some of its dubbed offerings. Urdu1 is also offering Latin American and Turkish soaps which, despite the fact that they contain non-desi actors whose voices have obviously been dubbed into Urdu, seem to have found wide acceptance among the usual female population that comprises the bulk of the viewers of such programming. So far, Pakistani channels have rarely ventured into the dubbing territory (although Geo Entertainment has shown a couple of dubbed films in the past) because it was generally believed that audiences did not like watching such dubs and could not identify with non-desi actors and that the viewership could not justify the costs of dubbing. It would be interesting to see when rival channels also begin to add similar programming. And we can bet it won't be long.

 'Forbidden Love': Turkish soap seems to be doing well with viewers

But Urdu1 is also making waves for other reasons. A conglomerate of its rivals, including Hum TV, Geo Entertainment, ARY Digital and Express Entertainment have filed a case in the Lahore High Court against the granting of 'landing rights' to the new channel (which basically allow it to be distributed legally within Pakistan), which was launched in Pakistan only in the second week of June. They have challenged the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to justify the grant of the license, which they claim is against PEMRA's own criteria for such licenses.

For one, these rivals argue that any foreign satellite channel must have been operative for at least three years before it can be considered for a 'landing rights' license , and that Urdu1 did not fulfill this criteria, having been launched (even by its own admission) "in the Middle East" only in June 2010. They also claim that foreign channels are, allegedly, not allowed to have more than 10-15% of their programming in Pakistani languages under PEMRA rules and thus Urdu1 falls afoul of this criteria as well. Urdu1's rivals may be technically right (we tried but could not locate these stipulations on the PEMRA site) but it should be fairly obvious from this petition that the big Pakistani entertainment channels are very apprehensive of what Urdu1's popularity could mean for their revenues. And let's be clear about one thing: their loud cries about 'foreign cultural content' and 'subversion of Pakistani culture' are only smokescreens for the real issue of revenue and profits.

There are a few points to consider here. A) I am no fan of the mind-numbing histrionics of Indian soaps, but is the "trade protection" being sought by Pakistani channels against Indian television content legitimate, especially when one considers that all of these same channels vie to run - and go out of their way to promote - Indian content such as awards shows and films when they can? B) Is Indian content the only issue? It was considered the main issue because of the supposed easy identification of Pakistani viewers with Indian storylines and actors, and the reason that nobody bothered that much about Western content, assuming it catered only to a small niche of viewers. How will that point-of-view fare with the popularity of dubbed non-Indian content as shown by Urdu1? To take the point further, is isolationism something to aspire towards? C) One can make legitimate arguments about the need for smaller trade / production entities to have benefits that level the playing field somewhat against larger entities that have the advantage of scale. But does that argument really hold for 'cultural products' in an increasingly globalized world where technology makes the cultural products of other nations easily accessible? After all, the 'protection' offered to the Pakistani film industry for over 40 years did not really help it to survive or become better did it? D) There is a fundamental issue at stake also about who benefits from such protection: does it actually benefit people it claims to serve or just a few corporates such as television channels, some big local production companies and their owners and investors? After all, all viewership surveys in Pakistan attest to the continuing popularity of Indian soaps despite their official prohibition and despite the rantings of the moral brigade. If viewers insist on watching shoddy melodramas and continue to find ways to do it, is it the job of government to deny them legitimate avenues to do so?

Finally, there is another significant aspect to Urdu1 which has piqued our interest. Its Pakistan license holder is a company called Horizon Media (Pvt) Ltd. which is fairly untraceable on the web. For a channel that supposedly launched "in the Middle East" (out of Dubai) in 2010, Urdu1 also has no website that we can locate. Its CEO is a man called Faraz Ansari, who used to be the former General Manager of Ten Sports and apparently worked for other media companies earlier as well.

However, we have learnt from very reliable sources that the real people behind the channel are three "heavyweight" legislators of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. In fact, we have been able to identify one of them: Ms Shazia Marri, now elected as a member of the National Assembly and former/ current minister for Information and Electric Power in Sindh province. Another may be current Sindh minorities minister Dr Mohan Lal, whose brother Mr Jai Prakash, a Shikarpur-based trader, is alleged to be the main financier of the venture.

 Shazia Marri: new media mogul?

What makes the whole venture more curious is that, according to our sources, Ms Marri has also been in long-running talks to buy an FM channel called Josh 99FM which operates out of Karachi, Lahore and Hyderabad and is "affiliated" with three other unnamed FM stations, claiming a total "potential" listenership of over 60 million people. Josh FM99's Chief Executive is Mr Sarmad Palijo, the younger brother of the sitting Sindh Culture and Tourism Minister Ms Sassui Palijo. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that those in the know claim the purchase negotiations have dragged on because of the involvement of Ms Faryal Talpur, another sitting PPP MNA and the sister of President Asif Zardari. Our sources claim they do not know what Ms Talpur's stakes are in the matter but that on more than one occasion, she intervened once the price had been tentatively agreed, to ask the parties to reconsider the price. According to our sources, one intervention was to urge a lowering of the price, another was to raise it, which may indicate that Ms Talpur had been requested to intervene by both sides at various times.

Is there a new media empire in the offing?

The Revolt Against Mr Jeem

So, remember that we tweeted about the return of Mr Jeem (Jeem for Jaahil) Online, Aamir Liaquat, to Geo all the way back on June 20? We had also tweeted that our sources were telling us that the return had been pushed through on the insistence of CEO Mir Shakilur Rahman's mother, the family's matriarch to whom Mr Jeem had gone abegging, and whose diktat could simply not be refused by anyone in Geo. Not only was the disgraced televangelist brought back and offered his own show (for which Geo has been running teasers and quarter-page advertisements proclaiming 'Someone is Coming'), he was ushered into the position of Vice President of the entire Geo TV Network, Group Executive Director and Editor Religious Affairs.

The teaser print ad for the return of Aamir Liaquat on Geo

Well, it seems a full blown revolt has now erupted within Geo's editorial management over this. Among the people said to be extremely unhappy with this turn of events are Managing Director Geo News Azhar Abbas, Director Content Development Muaaz Ghamdi and star anchors such as Sana Bucha (Lekin), Najam Sethi (Aapas Ki Baat) and Iftikhar Ahmed (Jawaabdeyh). Many others have also signed an internal petition being circulated against Mr Jeem's reappointment.

While it is not clear if anyone else has offered their resignations, Sana Bucha refused to conduct her programme on Friday and Saturday, leading to Meray Mutabiq's  Maria Memon being drafted in as a stop-gap arrangement, while the official explanation given was that Ms Bucha was busy in "personal engagements." Our sources tell us that Ms Bucha has indeed tendered her resignation at the return of the charlatan preacher and that the resignation has now been accepted. According to our sources, she had been explicitly promised that, if Mr Jeem were ever to return to Geo, she would be free to refuse to continue. Some sources claim she even had it written into her contract though we cannot verify this. If that is indeed true, that is forward-thinking the likes of which we have not heard of before in the Pakistani media. It remains to be seen if any of the others at Geo take a stand over this or whether Ms Bucha will become the revolt's sole sacrifice.

 Sana Bucha has resigned over Aamir Liaquat's reinduction

There are also some reports that she is already in talks with Dunya to take over the slot left vacant by the sacking of Mubasher Lucman over the Malik Riaz interview fiasco, who himself has now been picked up by ARY. If these reports are correct, it would be interesting to see Ms Bucha sharing channel space with Meher Bokhari, especially recalling that they are not on the best of terms to begin with. Suffice it to say, however, it seems no scandal is big enough - recall Aamir Liaquat's vitriolic and widely condemned religious zealotry and the expose of his personal hypocrisy, Lucman's and Bokhari's flouting of all professional ethics etc. - to make the media actually take stock of its blatant shortcomings and prevent it from hiring the same professionally disgraced people.

What is also quite clear is that Mr Jeem's return just before the advent of Ramzan has as much to do with an economic bottom line as pressure from the Rehman family matriarch. When he left Geo in 2010 for ARY, Geo attempted to fill his ubiquitous Ramzan programming with a slew of celebrity hosts (such as Junaid Jamshed and Reema) but ended up making far less money than they used to in previous 'holy months' when he fronted the programming.

And that's what the real 'Geo Asool' is all about. Money.

Yes, Television Was Sometimes Awful But Was Social Media Any Better?

Almost two years ago, I wrote this piece and this piece about reporting on the Air Blue aircraft crash in Islamabad. The tragic crash of Bhoja Air flight from Karachi to Islamabad yesterday and its attendant coverage has compelled me to sit at my keyboard yet again. But whereas my initial disgust with some of the reporting on television was the initial motivation for writing a few words, the subsequent speculation and shoot-everything-in-sight diatribes on social media deserve an equal evaluation.

Bhoja Air crash (Photos via Dawn)

More on the latter later in the post, however. First, let's look at where television coverage went right and where wrong (contrary to the outrage being expressed on social media, all of it was not dire). Generally, most channels did NOT show bodies or limbs. I flipped through most of the major channels during the initial coverage, once reporters and cameramen had reached the site of the crash, and none of them were deliberately showing gore. I have heard that Samaa breached this agreed upon rule during its coverage (I did not personally see it) and, if so, viewers should definitely haul them up for it. Generally, however, good sense dictated the on-site footage, with some minor slip-ups that occurred because of the live nature of the coverage but which were corrected immediately.

Most channels did go over the top in the intrusive way they covered the grieving families and friends of those who had lost their lives in the crash, with one channel's reporter even shoving a mike in the face of a wailing relative and most running footage of distraught people in a loop. This kind of insensitive and senseless reportage (what exactly is a grieving relative going to say that will add to the sum of our knowledge?) needs to be checked and the privacy and dignity of those affected by a tragic event needs to be respected by the media. Ditto for the silly and offensive animations that we have objected to earlier as well that are based on pure speculation (one had a plane nose-diving while ARY even ran a clip from a Hollywood film!)  and only serve to mislead viewers and perhaps cause agony for those affected.

However, those on social media who were of the opinion that there should be absolutely no coverage of those affected and that no such intrusion occurs anywhere else in the world are living in some sort of make-believe world. I'm sorry but, to a certain extent, this is the nature of the medium that television is, it gravitates towards dramatic visuals and I have personally seen Western reporters be equally insensitive and intrusive as well as plenty of footage on Western channels that covers grieving relatives. Instead of talking about having channels shut down over their coverage (on what basis one is still not quite sure) or hauled up and fined, it would be far more productive to build consensus on where the ethical line actually is. A good point to start, as someone pointed out, is for channels and reporters to put themselves in the shoes of those grieving. If one of their own family members had suffered such a tragedy, would they want their and their family's grief to be broadcast in close-up and in a loop to the whole world? Would they want to be asked what they are feeling? Pressure should be built on channel heads and news editors to sit down together - as they did in the case of coverage of people killed - and work out a framework of guidelines on how grief is to be shown, also keeping in mind that overly dramatic scenes of grief are not healthy viewing particularly for children who sometimes can catch them inadvertently.

Where most channels really slipped up, however, in my opinion, was, as in the case of the Air Blue crash, in their knowledge of basic scientific principles and facts and in their propensity to conjecture for no worthwhile reason or on the basis of any real facts. Thus two channels, including Dunya, initially kept insisting that the plane was a Russian aircraft (ostensibly implying poor quality construction) even while others had already pointed that it was an American Boeing. One channel, Express, initially announced that a military helicopter had gone down with soldiers on board (before reversing their 'breaking news') and ARY ran a lengthy clip of a local on site who claimed that the crash was probably caused by aerial firing 'as he had always feared and filed a court petition about'. Other 'eye-witnesses' variously claimed the plane had split up in the air or had been struck by lightning or that its engine was on fire. In most cases, the problem with unsubstantiated stories finding their way on to television news has to do with the 'breaking news' disease, the desire to be the first with the 'news' as part of ratings wars. But news editors should also know by now that 'eye-witness' accounts in such cases are notoriously contradictory and should at least be moderated by an editorial narrative. Wild claims such as that of aerial firing by the conjecturing 'eye-witness' only add to viewers' confusion and really should not be part of the narrative in the first place. I suppose when anchors have seemingly never even heard the term 'cloudburst', they latch on to whatever is easiest for them to grasp, whether it is relevant or not.

Incidentally, as pointed out by a journalist who emailed us, every channel also got one fact completely wrong: that this was Bhoja Air's 'inaugural' flight from Karachi to Islamabad. He pointed out that a friend of his had flown Bhoja on the same route three days earlier. However this wrong bit of information was apparently traced to Bhoja Air's own website. I have no idea why Bhoja would claim this was an inaugural flight when it was not. One suggestion was that, perhaps this was the first afternoon flight on the route while the earlier flights were morning flights. Even in that case, the term 'inaugural' is a bit of an exaggeration.

Of course the default position of all channels is to try and find scapegoats. Everyone knew that the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worst and freak acts of nature have in the past brought down planes in other places in the world - in fact, pilots who landed in Islamabad just a few minutes earlier confirmed that the weather had suddenly become very dangerous - yet most channels chose to attack the age of the aircraft, the skill of the pilot, the company's chequered history (it ceased operations in 2001 and only started up again a month and a half ago), Civil Aviation Authority's procedures and bizarrely even the government (in the case of Samaa). Geo's anchor, meanwhile, actually asked an astonished aviation expert if, 'had the pilot been more skilled, he could have brought the plane down low enough in the air for the passengers to jump out'. Really Junaid? Have you never travelled in a plane??!

The point is not that one or more of these factors could not have played a part in the tragedy. But that they were discussed ignoring the fact that even with the best and youngest of aircraft, the most skillful of pilots and the best of professional environments, accidents can and do happen with freak forces of nature. What purpose exactly is served, aside from filling up airtime space, from making conjectures whose actual answers will not be known until a proper inquiry is held? Or is creating pointless agitation among the public at large the job of news media? A debilitating lightning strike or devastating wind shear (as is now being discussed) could have solely been responsible without any of the factors being discussed coming into play.

Which brings me to the speculation that swamped Twitter and Facebook right after the crash. Truth be told, it was no better than the conjecture of the television anchors. One common refrain was the age of the aircraft that went down (more than 27 years according to this report in Dawn quoting AviationSafety.net), as if no old planes ever fly anywhere else in the world. In fact, as this answer points out, the average age of DC-9 aircraft operated by the US carrier NorthWest Airlines in 2005 was 34 years old! And that theoretically, depending on regular checks and maintenance, planes can continue to fly forever. (Here's some more info on life spans of aircraft in case you're interested.) In fact, the main reason fleets are replaced is because newer aircraft are more fuel efficient (but fleet replacement, as was blithely being suggested by certain people, obviously requires a lot of investment capital). Once again, the point is not that the age of the aircraft could definitely not have played a part in the tragedy. Only that picking on this one factor without any proof of it being a factor is as absurd as anything the channels were doing.

The other great target of social media activists seemed to be, as is always the case, Geo. I am hardly a defender of Geo's excesses, but as someone who watched most main channels' coverage of the incident, I can tell you that Geo was far more restrained than some of the others. By far the worst in terms of absolute absurdity were Express and ARY, mainly because there seemed to be no sensible editorial control and a surfeit of banal posturing from their reporters. As an example, in one segment on Express, the reporter held up a burnt out fire extinguisher because the anchor goaded him to get in amongst the debris and then spouted this gem: 'This cylinder is a fire extinguisher, used to extinguish fires, but when the plane caught fire, even this was no use.' He then went on to pick up another piece of debris, adding 'This used to be a part of the plane but after its destruction, it is no longer a part of the plane.'

So please, hold Geo's feet to the fire by all means, but let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees.

ARY In Disarray?

The following information has been posted by one Mekaal Hassan on the journalists' mailing group PressPakistan. We cannot verify it but it does seem to have more credible citations than the numerous allegations usually found on the list. Can anyone authenticate or rebut this information?

(On a side note, does anyone actually watch ARY these days?)

"The private Pakistani satellite television channel, ARY Digital is in deep financial trouble. The company behind the brand recently slid into administration, leaving employees (journalists and technical staff) helpless and aghast.

ARY Digital TV, broadcasts 3 Asian satellite television channels using Sky television platform in England, ARY News, QTV, and ARY Digital. The company (ARY Digital UK Limited) commenced trading on 9th April 1999 (company registered number 03749889). By July 2011, it owed over 3,500,000.00 (GBP) to various creditors including some well known industry names.

What appears really odd is that the company, now in administration, terminated arrangements with its employees, but later (unbeknown to them) those same employees were hired by a similarly sounding company: ARY Network Limited.

This new company was incorporated on 1st December 2010 (company registered no. 07456134). Administrators were appointed to deal with the affairs of ARY Digital UK Limited due to the disastrous financial situation the company found itself in. Matters were dealt with at the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, London and the company was placed into administration on the 19th May 2011, (case number No 4172 of 2011).

It is surprising that the assets of ARY Digital UK Limited were sold by private treaty to ARY Network Limited on the 31st May 2011. It is noteworthy that two of the directors of the two companies are brothers.

One of the directors of ARY Network Limited, Mr Muhammed Yaqoob Iqbal is the father of Salman Iqbal, a director of ARY Digital UK Limited. It appears that company assets have simply been passed between family members whilst countless creditors and employees are unaware of this private arrangement.

The employees at ARY s media station are completely outraged as they feel they have been cheated and denied basic employment rights as they did not even know of the changes being made by management. Some salaries have not been paid for almost a year.

The dire financial mismanagement came to light a few months ago when the ARY engaged in a costly advertising campaign to launch a weekly newspaper called The Bridge . Despite the allegedly huge costs incurred, no publication was ever released and it appears that the newspaper s editorial team have now been forced from office. No explanation has ever been given.

The company had promised to launch the newspaper in Pakistan and the UK but failed on both attempts. It is unclear what strategy was at work and why one company was forced to incur exorbitant marketing/advertising costs given there has not been a single publication to date.

Reliable sources within the channel have cited unrest and anger among the employees who find themselves now being employed by the new company. According to a senior insider, professional trade unions are now set to step in and a legal battle will ensue by those wanting to protect themselves from the adventures of the owners.

It seems however if the old ARY has been put in to administration and the employees have suddenly found that the label has been changed and a new ARY has taken over (albeit under the control of the brother) the staff may have to ask the authorities to investigate matters further.

When the company was set up, the first directors were Jawaid Pasha, Yasir Pasha and Zain Pasha who (for reasons unknown) all resigned abruptly on 13th October 2000. It was on that date, Mr Muhammed Yaqoob Iqbal and Salman Iqbal were appointed as directors. Even Mr Asif Iqbal (the former cricketer) was a director at one point as was Barbara Kahan although their positions have since been terminated.

Records at Companies House (the government agency for all companies in England and Wales) makes it clear that the principal activity of the company to June 2006 was to produce and broadcast television programmes for the Asian community in the UK and Europe. It cites, the company having suffered material losses whilst carrying out this activity .

Those losses were financed and underwritten by its shareholders as well as loans from sponsors. It goes on to state: Due to heavy trading losses 5 years ago, the company entered into an agreement with one of its (family) associated company s . Therefore, its current activity is that of sales and marketing for 3 satellite television stations for the Asian market in the UK and Europe. " The Company suffered bad debts on a regular basis which created cash flow problems

The papers submitted by the ARY owners, state the company directors felt the company may not be able to trade through the difficult financial period. Rather than risk whatever little assets the company owned and further expose itself to trade creditors they felt the company should be placed in to administration to protect its position and therein its assets."

Video Of The Day: Losing It Live

Sigh. Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or cry at the state of political debate on the electronic media.

See following clip from ARY's "11th Hour" programme from yesterday with host Waseem Badami (thanks to Akhtar Rind for bringing it to our notice). The programme was ostensibly innocuously about 'What good news could the government give the public in the current dire scenario?' The first comment was solicited from well known columnist and television host Hasan Nisar, who decided to proclaim that no good news could come until the current political elite was not "totally eliminated." According to him, the current lot of politicians were all "robbers and dacoits" who were "sucking the blood of the people" and the people themselves were the "biggest villains" for bringing them into power in the first place. Of course it all went downhill from there. The PPP's Punjab president, Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, who spoke next, was remarkably restrained in his response, saying smartly that no sensible person would like to respond to such slander and he wanted to be counted among the ranks of sensible people. However, the PMLN's Senator Mushahidullah did take the bait. And this is what then happened:



If you would like to watch the full context of this exchange, you can do so here.

Hasan Nisar has made a name for himself as a frank and forthright political commentator in Jang. And I have to admit that I do often find even his rants about politics a refreshing change from the mealy-mouthed hypocrisy that generally clutters the op-ed pages of Urdu papers. But having watched this exchange, I have absolutely no qualms in saying that Nisar was egregiously in the wrong here. Not only in the shameful way he chose his words on live television but also in terms of his politics. Criticizing the trappings and non-representational character of what he terms "pseudo-democracy" is one thing. But what he basically said was no different from the line of social elites and autocrats: that the people really don't know what's good for them and only they themselves are the repositories of all wisdom. He should offer an immediate apology.

Incidentally, kudos to Waseem Badami for keeping his wits about him even in the midst of mayhem and managing to pull back the programme from the brink of collapse. It's not easy to deal with such unexpectedly virulent behaviour on live television.

Meanwhile if you thought that was bad, this is what happened on Express News' "Kal Tak" programme hosted by Javed Chaudhry on March 29 (thanks to Shahid Saeed and @fraz_lsf for pointing it out). Watch the end as Talal Bugti begins his 'conversation':



Incredible.

Loco in Motion, Again?

So, Dr S&M sent us an email this morning asking us to place his statement on our website. At first we weren't quite sure whether it was the real McCoy or someone just putting us on though it did sound like him. But since the same statement is also to be found on his own official website (as well as featured on the pkpolitics website and on the presspakistan email group), and since there has been no denial all day from him or from ARY, we assume that it is. Most of you have probably read the statement by now but in case you haven't, and to honour his request, we are reproducing it here, typos, banalities and all. It's a bit long-winded and self-promoting but hey, that's Dr S&M for you, what do you expect?

Dr S&M in his latest avatar

We do have a couple or four observations about it, but will come to them after the statement itself:

"December 24, 2010



A Decade of Distinction



Dear fellows, colleagues, well-wishers,

This year is important to me as a personal milestone- a turning point in both my career, my life as well as the fact that I shall also be commemorating a decade of my association with television broadcast this coming 9/11.

I must admit how it has been a tedious but a momentous journey- testing, trying and rewarding as I learned the ropes and gained rich and eventful experience of more than 13000 hours of being in front of the camera, controversies and commotion. Needless to say, this is my distinction over a decade of self-discovery in my quest for seeking the truth.

My story began on a day that shook the world. September 11, 2000. The airplanes that crashed in to the Trade Towers had set about to redefine the world's geopolitical and socio-religious texture and in so many ways, perhaps the true beginning of private News television industry in Pakistan as I started my show on then ARY - Pakistan’s first private TV channel.

The repercussions for the world, the consequences of that eventful day aside, I was also overwhelmed by the experience, the fact that I was to go on-air and comment, present facts that are unbiased and based of factual but fast changing reality. I still get goose bumps when I remember those long hours and a young beginning wrapped with all the excitement and the freedom with responsibility that came with it. It was a moment of actualization for me, giving me the much needed confidence to reach out to all of you through my shows.

Jets flew off docked aircraft carriers, bombs formed the clouds of death, chaos and decent set the order of despair, hope it seemed had admitted defeat. It was all happening so fast that often I was not talking but speaking to you- I found myself connecting on a human level, an unmistakable feeling of empathy and helplessness, fears of future that formed the dark clouds hovering over our part of the world. I was engaged much passionately, as a cause, a belief with my friends, adversaries, critics and importantly my viewers who allowed me to touch upon these subjects.

The journey to a never-ending future awaited my presence.

I began to bring to you news reports from war fronts and forums alike. I travelled to where the news took me, no matter at what odds. I retraced the footsteps of the human story, misgivings, injustice and oppression. From the war in Afghanistan to the Civil war in Lebanon, from the infamous Referendum to Elections of 2002 and the tragic unfolding in the aftermath of the 2002 Earthquake in Pakistan.

I must admit how Views on News was more than a show for me. It was a personification of my conviction, that it was time that Pakistan's media liberated the ‘information-control’ and the ‘mind-control’ of ignorance. Time, I felt, had come when the viewers became in control of what they wanted to see and hear.

As I look back gently now, I can not thank ARY Television Network enough for all the opportunities and trust they had put in my abilities; or the lack of it- but there encouragement had certainly propelled, Dr. Shahid Masood in the making. I was being observed. I was being noticed. I was being watched. Heard. In between criticized too. But unlike many who would seem to fume at a single mention of them in the negative, I maintain that Criticism is very important to me as I feel that it is always true for anything that attempts to redefines the norms and cause a stir in status quo of perceptions.

I may have not realized what I was to champion in times to come back then, but it sure was a slow but definite sinking reality that my viewers had come to expect me to redefine the reality for them, I was to shake the myths and mysteries that had so conveniently enshrouded our past and our present.

All hindrances, set backs and shocks aside, I was resolved in wake of challenges despite the fatigue and exhaustion in my Pursuit to seek knowledge for myself first and then for my viewers. It is nothing less than a sacred trust. Something that I have cherished to this day and shall always, for times to come.

With an urge to experience a new idea, a new setting and to allow more people come in the industry, rather than to have blocked them from a opportunity by being at ARY, I parted ways amicably with my media alma mater, my first home to find myself at Pakistan's number 1 network, 'Geo'.

Change is never easy, change is both a challenge and a chance. I took both in the same stride as I embraced my leap of faith and as many of you would recall, I was to be on-air with a more 'opinionated' Dr. Shahid Masood. It was the world according to me, called, ‘Meray Mutabiq’, I can safely say that it was my catharsis televised- It was a true depiction of the world around us as people, as a country. I took great pains just as much as the management did as well in leaving no stone unturned to make it a huge success.

But success in fluidity can cause commotion. Meray Mutabiq was to soon set history in another dimension. Closed done by a ban for three long months, the show was unceremoniously pulled off-air! But I have no regrets, because I know that when one forebears the standard, the march is always uphill.

I had witnessed also the closure of Geo, the lawyers movement, the days of batons and long march all embroiled with political temperatures had consumed me to be involved to a level of dedication to the cause. The barricades mimicking sign board saying ‘Constitution Avenue’. Time is a great historian, and I shall let it record history, but for now, it brings me to put on record that I am thankful to Geo Television Network to have had stood beside my program in recognition of my contribution as a anchor. Thank you Geo for your trust, it has and will always mean a lot to me.

I remember reading some where, that 'life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans'. My life too, was to experience a great honor in this prolific media industry- when for the first time in the history of State run, Pakistan Television, I was to be given the responsibility and charge to galvanize the organization’s spirit as both its M.D and Chairman.

On one hand, the accolade of holding the dual titles at PTV along with doing a TV show as well, were a humbling experience, since I were to be the first since 1960’s, and yet on the other hand were my audience, my viewers who were choking my inbox with their emails. They were resentful of this move. They wanted Dr. Shahid Masood to let go of the honor, the ‘firsts’ that he was making. They wanted him to be on the other side of the media divide. This experience made me let go of all the titles, honors and state recognition. And I do not regret any of it, as I was to choose to stand side by side with my real strength, my audience.

It is in this state of mind that I to be mindful of people's expectation poising a question in my mind. Truth beckons courage, and hence, in the end, I find no reason is stronger than belief- unless belief itself is the reason.

Soon after relinquishing my responsibilities from PTV, I was to serve as the adviser to the Prime Minister. Something that I thought I will not be good at, and my doubts proved just about right. Pakistan’s flag full-mast on my car was a great honor and yet, the voices of people called me back, to be ad mist them. In hope, in faith and in belief that there shall be a better tomorrow.

I stepped out of that car, and drove down the streets of Islamabad in a car not much different to yours.

The car I drove that day, got parked again at the Geo News Studios.

‘Meray Mutabiq’ was to begin again. Much to my delight, I was again amongst family. But times had not changed. If at all, it went more hostile towards our newly earned freedom of speech- or the expectation of 180 million people seeking both, the truth and the answers.

My show was to be shut on instructions of the powers to be.

Meray Mutabiq, its team and I, we were to experience the next 12 weeks like wandering gypsies. A show here, another there, motivated but tired. Courageous but in face of great opposition, threats looming large... friendly advises perverting the will... nevertheless the show continued for weeks like this.

With all resources marginalized, stepped up pressures and antics, never was there a moment of lull, despair or destitute. Each program seemed like a edifice of resolve.

Each episode a reason to believe- to be, to do more and not look back.


Your emails, your messages, your texts allowed me to brave the consequences against all odds. I may have made many adversaries, I admit. But in this profession, the choices one makes are founded on principles and not rumor mills. I have shied from public statements, I have by nature, withstood the propaganda, the laments and at a odd few times slurs hurled at me by my opponents.


Allow me to say, 'opponents in perception', as unfortunately, those who have, have done so without meeting me or knowing me. But, I smile at each of their assumptions, and feel there is never a need for a rebuttal! I find it not consummate to my vision or stature. I am sure, you'd all agree that restraint is the strength of a humble man.

In between these times, I felt obligated on a personal level and voluntarily opt out of Geo again in my sincere attempt to allow them the space to continue their broadcast without let or hinder.

Soon enough, I was the President of ARY Television Network and back on the screen with the new version of Views on News. I am certain, some of you have been privy to, or receiving a lot of emails and needless speculations, ranging from controversies on hiring, firings and resignations all the way to some using their time and energy to discuss me.

I am pleased to announce that I will be a colleague and a co-worker with some of you very soon in my capacity of 'CEO and President' for an upcoming Media Group.

This Group, is a Media House that will bring out quality TV channels, Dailies and Periodicals besides establishing of Media University of international standard. But honestly none of this would really have been possible, if there was not a Group behind my dream.

In the forefront of this initiative is the man leading this Global consortium, whom I must thank for his having agreed to venture in this media enterprise. Mr. Sadruddin Hashwani a name you are all familiar with. Someone we have all come to respect as a man whose patriotism makes us proud, whose resolve makes us believe more in our own selves. A role model to have risen above the rest as a self made man who now wishes to set a precedence in media, reinventing, reinvigorating and reviving our industry bogged down by lethargy.


Mr. Hashwani leads this consortium of giants from the Middle East and Europe. A unique and impressive list of notable personalities and business conglomerates who have both put their resources and trust behind Mr. Hashwani and of course through him- in me, and through me- in and on all the working media professionals of Pakistan.

I must admit that this introduction to Mr. Hashwani or the international consortium is no justice. And I fail in introducing them to the hilt that they deserve an introduction, but I do intend on introducing them in more details that I shall share with all of you soon.

It is history in the making, it is a hard task. And I know. But let me admit, let me confess....here perhaps, I am in need for your support and well-wishes, more than any other event in my 10 years of being associated with the media industry.


I am embarking upon a journey to redefine Media History in Pakistan as we know it. Never before, had a working professional in Media could dream of being a stake holder in equity in a big Media Group before, I am to set the precedence.


This precedence is not to boast the achievement, but share that dreams can be dreamt and turned true. This is not my achievement, but a victory to all of you, my fellow colleagues, anchors, that intent and perseverance against animosity can find its own ways to collective benefit of the media industry.

I thank you once again, for all your support, your prayers and well wishes. I know I could not have been able to do any of this without the blessings of Allah, and all the people who have helped me in my eventful journey including Mir Shakilur Rahman, Mir Ibrahim Rahman and Salman Iqbal.

I look forward to your continued feedback and suggestions.

Sincerely.


Dr. Shahid Masood
President & CEO
Pearl Communications (PVT) Ltd
Shalimar 5 Agha Khan Road Islamabad
www.drshahidmasood.com"

Now, if genuine, this letter / statement raises some rather interesting questions:

1. During that entire episode with ARY only a couple of days ago, when DrS&M was denying rumours he had been sacked and even that he had resigned, and reposing his trust in ARY CEO and MD Salman Iqbal, obviously the good doc had already been in negotiations with Sadruddin Hashwani for this new media venture. And wasn't he made President of ARY only a few months ago? What does that say about him and his professional integrity?

2. In fact, one of the commenters on the PressPk email list had hinted that the chaos at ARY had something to do with TWO new media ventures about to be launched in Pakistan and the recruitment drive being carried out by these ventures. Since we had no information to confirm the veracity of this, we had decided to not include this in our earlier post. The two powerful and monied men mentioned as behind these upcoming ventures were cited as Sadruddin Hashwani and Mian Mohammad Mansha. If this letter is genuine, at least one of those hints has turned out to be true. We wait with bated breath for the second to come true.

3. It seems not a little bit odd to us that this new venture should be announced in this way. Shouldn't it actually have been Mr Hashwani to announce his venture?

4. Finally, we have to say that money obviously does not buy anyone any sense. If Mr Hashwani is actually venturing into the media in a big way, surely picking up an opinionated blowhard with so much baggage as the face of it can't be a good omen. I mean, really, what exactly are Dr S&M's qualifications or achievements? That he put out loco shows that fewer and fewer people watched as time went on, because there's just so much lunacy people can take (the last few episodes of his Views on News programme featured that master-wanker Zaid Hamid again!)? That he failed miserably at PTV and managed to turn everyone against him? That he can hold forth about End of Days? But it someone wants to crash and burn with their money, hey, who are we to stop them.

We do have one final question for Dr S&M himself though: What is going on with your hair, dude? Are we to take it that you are going the route of the Sharifs? And if so, is this presaging a mid-life crisis?

Storm in ARY's Teacup (Updated)

The journo bulletin boards are abuzz about confusing goings-on within ARY.

According to the reports (among them, this one from JournalismPakistan), the ARY's longtime Lahore Bureau Chief Nasrullah Malik has either resigned or been sacked, along with at least four other staffers. An email letter circulated among staff by CEO ARY Network Salman Iqbal warns them about Mr Malik calling up staffers in other bureaus to urge them to resign in his support and says Mr Malik's claims that he had resigned over delays in salary payments and other work-related issues are not true. The letter calls upon the staff to pay no heed to the attempts to tarnish ARY's reputation. There are unconfirmed reports also of ARY's Director News Mohsin Raza having also submitted his resignation. Earlier rumours of Dr S&M having similarly turned in his papers seem to have been, unfortunately, untrue.

According to unverified sources, Mr Malik was either forced to resign or sacked for allegedly misappropriating funds meant for the needy, particularly the flood-affected, under the umbrella of the ARY-set up Khwaja Ghareeb Nawaz Trust. Mr. Malik apparently denies the (whispered) allegations and has threatened to take ARY management to court. There are also rumours of other staff demanding their pending dues to be cleared immediately and that the current problems are associated with certain recently announced administrative appointments. Whatever the truth of the matter, there seems to be plenty of storm raging in the ARY teacup at the moment.

Anyone know what's really going on?


: : : UPDATES AND CORRECTIONS  : : :

It seems we got some of our information - culled from the bulletin boards - incorrect. Salman Iqbal did, in fact, accuse Nasrullah Malik in writing of embezzlement. We now have access to the actual letters written to and fro, which we are reproducing below without any editing whatsoever. Readers may judge their worth themselves.


From ARY Network CEO and MD Salman Iqbal:

From: Salman Iqbal

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:45:40 +0000

Subject: Nasrullah

Dear All

With a very heavy heart I am writting this email to all of you. I would have never writted this email, and this issue would have gone to the grave with me. But after what all has happened I have no choice but to write this email to all off you.

As you all know that nasrullah malik has resigned, and with him he made 4 other reporters resign. Not only that but he has been calling all the reporters in all the bureaus to resign to show his strength, not only that but he has also made phone calls to Dr shahid and many others saying that I salman Iqbal has fired Dr shahid. Let me reiterate with the strongest heart that this is not true. I have neither fired dr shahid not intend to, and nor have I made any list to fire any other reporter or people on the desk. These are all rumors spread by one person to make our organization week.

I am really proud of the boys who did not listen to nasrullah and worked with all there spirit and good heartdness as always.I thank them once again The actual fact why nasrullah resigned is because he was asked to do so. Nasrullah has worked for over 8 years in our organization and was an integral part of it. Nasrullah was actually a face of ARY news in punjab. Half of the province actually thought he was the owner or a shareholder of ary. You all would thinking why was he asked to resign. I with a very heavy heart now have to disclose the truth.

He was asked to resign cause he had stolen money in the name of charity of KhwAja ghareeb nawaz trust. He was confronted by me personally on the phone and he accepted it. Thru ammad I had asked him to come to karachi last to last friday when I was there. And he said he would come. When I spoke to him on the phone he accepted his crime and promised it will never happen again. To which I didn\'t agree. I told him to quietly resign and leave and nothing will happen to him nor will this ever come out.

Resign he did, which I accepted with a big heart. This story would have never come , but what he did after his resignation is not accpetable and neither is professional. He is telling everybody that he resigned due to non payment of salaries and other issues. Which is not true. He was aksed to leave cause even previously I use to get many calls from people that he use to take bribes for his work. Although his brother was convicted for a murder in punjab I tried my level best to get him released from jail, and we got successful in doing that. When I use to hear such things I never believed it and always use to write it off. But when I actually got proof os him stealing money in the name of charity and using it for his personal gain, that was it.

The sad part here is that I had forgiven him for his sins, but he instead of departing quietly started creating panic in our organization, in every level possible. From top level status of dr shahid, to even sweepers in ARY lahore. Which was very heart breaking and that\'s why I had no option but to tell the whole organization of his sins.

I really sorry that I had to disclose the truth to all of you, cause I had no other option. Today is a sad day at ARY, and it is very sad for me in 3 counts. One I had to let go of my very close person nasrullah, and the second cause he stole from us and third he tried to break us in two.

I am grateful that I have a strong team that\'s why nasrullah failed to break us in to 2. People who have left under nasrullah\'s influence are week and dependent on him, and they have no standing of there own. And they were scared that without nasrullah there weakness would have been seen by everyone. I love my team and I know all of you are loyal people. And all of you tried really hard to get nasrullah back into ARY. You all should now know that\'s the reason why nasrullah shut his phone for 5 days and even though being in dxb did not have the courage to meet me or even call me when a lot of his colleagues asked him too. You all must have gotten your answer, cause he had confronted to me for his theft, and he had no words to talk to me.

Let\'s put our head down, and work really hard to bring this organization back to no 1. Let\'s stand together and fight these rumors off. And I am really grate to dr shahid for his strength that he has shown in this whole turmoil, by standing besides me and helping me thru all this.

Thank you all

Yours

Salman iqbal

CEO and managing director.

ARY Network.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

 Reply from Nasrullah Malik, former Lahore Bureau Chief ARY News:

From: Nasrullah Malik

Date: Mon 20 Dec 2010

Mr. Salman Iqbal

Keeping in view our long relation and personal association I wanted to quit my job in a dignified manner so I resigned on December 14, 2010. You Know it well how you and your cronies beg me to withdrew my resign and return to my job. Everyone Knows inside and outside ARY the way my team and I served the organization even with our blood wherever required. Being owner of a channel network it is your prerogative to hire and fire people. But in the same way it is a right of an employee to decide if he wants to continue or quit his Job. Obviously you can not own people. It is always mutual trust that works both ways. With salaries delayed and working environment deteriorating it was impossible for an honest journalist to continue job in such a channel.

However, it was beyond my imagination that you could slip down so much to come up with such a pack of lies against me. Unfortunately my approach about you was wrong because the family in which I groomed I am taught to trust friends and reciprocally individual like you having love for money alone and no regards for any moral value or manners have shown your true face.

By the grace of Allah Almighty, I am confident that people who know both of us having courage to give honest opinion will stand by my side on all your false accusations against me. I challenge you and anybody else who is of your opinion to prove even the smallest of false charge you leveled against me in my whole professional career. Further, I am ready to declare all my assets at any forum and I challenge you to come forward and do the same.

After reading those lines you wrote about me, I have doubts about your mental health. For instance, you blamed me of embezzling money from Kh. Ghareeb Nawaz Trust which is solely owned and operated by your family. Those who know your family can be witness to what I have said. I suppose after earth quake of 2005 and recent flood it is high time that you and your family made accountable to give the details of single penny that was donated by people from allover the world.

As for as the matter of my taking bribe or favors is concerned, it is not in my blood. Further, I belong to that group of thought who earn and take to their homes all what is Halal. I do not come from your family and I do not have NAB References against me. I have not committed any fraud with individuals, banks and companies in UAE. It is not my nature to stab friends in the back the way you did. People know that I am in Lahore where I have been living for over two decades but your family has absconded from Dubai after embezzling money and dishonoring of cheques. Allah knows well who is honest and who cheated even his family.

Those four journalists you try to label as vermin, actually served ARY over the years with their utmost dedication and best of abilities. Most experienced and reputed among them is Mr. Suhail Shahryar son of a noble family. In his over twenty years of journalistic experience before joining ARY he also served as Bureau Chief of Online Int. News Network in Lahore for seven years.

Similarly, Mian Mohammad Aslam is also a seasoned journalist known for his accurate and exclusive reporting among the journalist community in Lahore. He served in three major national dailies before joining ARY. He has remained a major contributor of exclusive stories to the channel. Two young stars of journalist community in Lahore are Asad Sohaib and Zulqarnain Sheikh whom you blamed for being parasites.

I am really ashamed that you wrote that you supported me in false murder case against my brothers. The fact is that you haven’t done any thing for me in that case and the government of that time witnessed me fighting it all alone without any favor from any body. I believe on merit and it was my conviction that Allah helps those who are on the right path. People know how you are trying to settle your nab and fraud cases with the help of media and official support.

I will now show your true face to whole of Pakistan, especially people in the media. On the false allegations you leveled against me Allah will make you answerable. At the same time I am approaching independent judiciary in the country to make you accountable for baseless charges against me and I am going to file a liable suit against you in the court.

Nasrullah Malik

20th of December 2010

Lahore.

As a superfluous aside, please note the following two missives from Dr S&M sent immediately after Salman Iqbal's letter to the staff:

First email from Dr S&M, President ARY Network:

From: Dr Shahid Masood

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:42:28 +0000

Subject: My status/position

Dear All,

We in organisation are all aware of a situation which emerged after some of our colleagues resigned from lahore. It was followed by another unpleasant incident in islamabad office.

During last one hour I received calls from media industry including one very important one (about which I informed salman sb immediately). I was involving my own status. Although salman sb categorically denied and we both are on same page in all decisions taken during last few days/months. Even then I" offer" my resignation if it can be helpful in resolving the issues.

I request all the team members to avoid creating/listening to rumours.

Best wishes.

Dr Shahid Masood

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Second email from Dr S&M, President ARY Network:
 

From: Dr Shahid Masood

Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:16:59 +0000

Subject: Re: My status/position

Dear All,

Just to clarify the resignation word in my previous email. Its just an"offer",as I haven\'t resigned. The purpose was to convey a message that no one is above the organisation,including myself. As Winston Churchill said"let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning".

Regards.

Dr Shahid Masood.

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The Continuously Intriguing Media

It's getting so that even reporting on people changing jobs in the media has become risky business. As in, risky for one's credibility. Even though we do rely on very good sources before putting the information out here.

The latest U-turn (and believe us, it is a U-turn) is morning show star Dr Shahista Wahidi's announcement today on ARY that the news of her departure from the channel is simply rumour and not based on fact. Yes, Dr Wahidi, tell that to Geo which had bade Nadia Khan farewell and was having your new show's set designed. Obviously, this can only mean that ARY has upped the ante even further than the 22 lakhs a month Geo had offered Wahidi to lure her. Some people have all the luck, particularly at channels where many complain of not being paid their far more meagre salaries on time.

It was precisely because of this pendulum style of job negotiations that we had held off on reporting about The News senior investigative journalist Rauf Klasra's potential move from the Jang Group to the Express Media Group, which he himself had threatened many times earlier and which we had actually known about for some time. But now that the daily Express itself has confirmed it, we can add to it the reasons for it beyond the lure of a better pay packet.

In fact, Klasra had been rather unhappy at the Jang Group for quite some time. The official reason that Klasra is apparently now giving is his unhappiness with the, in his opinion, 'agenda-driven anti-government line of the Jang Group.' (It must be remembered that Klasra is known to be quite friendly with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who is from his hometown, Multan, and who it is believed is sometimes himself the source for some of Klasra's stories.) The upset with the excesses of the Jang Group may well be true, but it is also true that Klasra has been at daggers drawn with some of his colleagues at the Islamabad bureau of The News, particularly with the Editor Investigations Ansar Abbasi and his junior Ahmad Noorani, whom he accuses of constantly maligning and undermining him.

The rivalry between the three truly came out into the open last year when the website pkpolitics.com ran a story about Klasra's alleged corruption in receiving favours from the government in the allocation of plots and government housing for his (government employee) wife and relatives, claims Klasra strenuously denied. Klasra believed the story was instigated by the Nawaz Sharif camp to discredit him in retaliation for stories he had done about the Sharifs' alleged corruption and maladministration and claimed in a Jang column in September 2009 to have served a legal notice for 100 million pounds on the website (we have no idea what became of it). But more than that he also saw the direct connivance of Abbasi and Noorani in what he termed a 'smear campaign' against him. (Noorani, who most believe says things and writes stories at Abbasi's behest, even weighed in publicly against Klasra.) Things became so bitter at the Islamabad bureau that Mir Shakilur Rahman did one of his trademark organizational fudges to calm things down: he removed Klasra from under Abbasi and gave him a made-up title of Editor Reporting, reporting directly to the Editor. (Incidentally, the current Editor of The News Rawalpindi, Mohammad Mallick, supported Klasra in his fight against pkpolitics, which makes eminent sense since pkpolitics had also run a story earlier about Mallick's alleged corruption.)

But things continued to simmer and came to a head last month when Klasra ran two stories on September 28 and September 30. The first of these claimed that "backdoor channels played a key role" in defusing a crisis between the government and the judiciary. Bizarrely, the newspaper carried another story side-by-side with this, from "our correspondent" (code for Abbasi / Noorani) quoting Supreme Court sources debunking Klasra's story. (The Jang Group must have the only newspapers in the world that carry two diametrically opposite 'investigative' stories on the same day.) In fact, the Supreme Court exerted so much pressure for a retraction that The News published an "unconditional and sincere apology" on September 30. However, since Klasra was adamant about his story (insider sources say he told management he was willing to go to jail for it if need be) the apology was published from the editor, printer and publisher. No journalist appreciates a management that refuses to stand by its reporter and apparently Klasra was incensed that the apology was published despite his standing by his story. In fact, he blamed Abbasi for goading the management into publishing the apology and even hit out publicly at Abbasi on a Dunya TV programme later.

The second story Klasra published on September 30, claimed that President Zardari had admitted in an internal Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) meeting that he had been "misled" into not defending in court the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) by some unnamed "players of the game." Klasra further cited "one insider source" to claim that Zardari may have been referring to a well-respected but unnamed former judge from Karachi. Once again, two days later Ahmad Noorani published a story claiming that Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim denied the "president's defamatory allegations" and mocking Klasra for defaming him. This was another bizarre rebuttal since Klasra had never actually named anyone in his story. It is also obvious from the story that Ebrahim had been goaded into offering a rebuttal, as if he was the only respected retired judge in Karachi.

These two instances of direct undermining by colleagues were apparently the straw that broke the camel's back, leading Klasra to finally say enough is enough. For whatever it's worth, Klasra has often broken some interesting stories at The News / Jang and his departure will certainly leave the Jang Group poorer in the investigative department. The Jang Group will also miss his contacts within the government since Abbasi and Noorani have already been accused by the PPP of running one-sided stories. Klasra, whose recently published book Ek Siyaasat, Kayee Kahaniyaan [One Politics, Many Stories] has already become a best-seller, may be on a high at the moment, but it remains to be seen how well he adjusts to a new organizational culture at the Express Media Group.

Meanwhile, Aaj TV continues its blood-letting of staff after the departure of Syed Talat Hussain for Dawn and DawnNews. More staff have been fired from the Islamabad bureau, leading others to wonder just exactly what Aaj's management has in mind for the channel.

Media Musical Chairs

There is such a frenetic game of musical chairs going on in the media these days that we can hardly keep up. So we decided to just do a short post, combining all the major transitions we do know about or have heard about...

First up, rumours are swirling that Fahd Hussain, who recently left Express TV to join Dunya, may be signing up with Aaj TV, where Talat Hussain recently announced his departure. According to this website, Fahd has been involved in some clashes with Dunya TV's owner Mian Aamir Mahmood and is also finding it frustrating not to yet have found a primetime slot there. We do not know how true these particular reports are but Fahd himself apparently refuses to either confirm or deny the rumours of negotiations with Aaj, which might be some sort of indication.

Matters are complicated by further rumours that Talat Hussain's apparent move to DawnNews may have hit snags over his desire to bring with him about half a dozen other subordinates at fairly high salaries, at which DawnNews management has balked. There are also reports that Aaj management is going full throttle to retain Talat by offering to address the issues he had with the channel. If indeed either or both of these reports are true, and Talat does in fact stay at Aaj, obviously there would not be any empty slot for Fahd to move into.

In any case, that's enough of the rumours. What is certain are the following:

Sana Bucha, the host of Crisis Cell who recently resigned from Geo to go to ARY, is coming back to Geo, believe it or not. Apparently, she began having doubts about her move to ARY almost immediately upon signing up with them, realizing (a bit late) that she would be reporting to one President Dr S&M there. Even before she had formally begun work there, however, she therefore allowed herself to be poached by the Express Media Group. This is when it got even more interesting. Having signed up with Express (in what capacity, whether for the Express Tribune or for their channels, we are not quite sure), she was beseeched by a rather dramatic Mir Ibrahim Rahman (MIR) to come back to the Geo fold. Apparently she was put under a lot of family pressure (the Rahmans know her family) and finally buckled on the condition that MIR would handle the embarrassment with the Express management. In this short, almost virtual job hopping spree, it is said that she managed to come back to Geo at double her previous salary. A good strategy if you can swing it.

Meanwhile, from the looks of this return, the negotiations that Geo was having with Meher Bokhari (which have been confirmed) to wean her away from Samaa, seem to have come to naught.

But Geo has managed to snag one other big fish, so to speak. As we reported earlier (in rumour terms), Dr Shahista Wahidi is all set to take over the morning show at Geo, replacing the once-favoured Nadia Khan. Wahidi has left ARY and scooted over to Geo's welcoming arms at a whopping salary. Her stint will begin anon.

In already established news, Zaffar Abbas has formally taken over (on October 4) as Editor Dawn from the departing Abbas Nasir, who has moved back to London with his family after four-years at the helm of the paper. And Aaj TV has introduced former bureaucrat and columnist Orya Maqbool Jan and former The News editor Salim Bokhari as the bickering replacements for Mushtaq Minhas and Nusrat Javed in their Bolta Pakistan programme. The latter duo, as we all know, now bicker over at Dunya TV on Dunya Mere Aagay.

On an unrelated note, Arif Nizami's Pakistan Today is now said to launch today (October 5) in Lahore and, interestingly, will be published in the tabloid format, making it the country's first such daily.

The Shaam Coup

The media thunderbolt out of the blue came late in the evening even as most people were tuned in to the one-day cricket match between England and Pakistan. Mahmood Shaam, the editor of Pakistan's largest Urdu daily Jang since 1994 and associated with the Jang Group on and off for almost 45 years, had jumped ship and joined the ARY Media Group. Even more intriguingly, he had signed up to become the Chief Editor of a new Urdu newspaper, set to be launched by the ARY Group from three cities.

The banner of www.mahmoodshaam.com

Now, those who follow Pakistani media in general and Urdu publications specifically, will realize how big a coup (at least in perceptual terms) this is for ARY and how big a blow it is for the Jang Group, whose CEO Mir Shakilur Rahman (MSR) and Group Managing Director, Shahrukh Hassan, are both currently out of the country. Shaam has been in journalism for almost 50 years and is known as an author and poet and in certain circles as a progressive intellectual as well. He was considered close at one time to Pakistan Peoples Party leaders, including Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto, and was also jailed briefly during the martial law of General Ziaul Haq and saw his own weekly Mayaar (Standard) banned for some time under martial law regulations.

Adding to the feeling of the coup is the fact that most in the Jang Group had no inkling about what was about to happen and only learnt about it once ARY began to crow about signing up Shaam, first as breaking news on its television news channel and subsequently as a detailed report during its news bulletins. ARY actually ran footage of its management bigwigs sitting with Shaam as he signed (apparently) his new employment contract and continued to run tickers of congratulatory messages from its CEO Salman Iqbal - the nephew of owner Haji Abdul Razzaq of ARY Gold fame - and other management figures to Shaam. It almost seemed as if ARY were desperate to ensure that Shaam had no second thoughts and to ward off any possibility of MSR attempting to persuade him against going through with this change of loyalties.

Pouring salt into Jang's wounds, however, ARY has also nabbed the Resident Editor of Jang Rawalpindi, Rana Tahir Mehmood, who will be the Group Editor of the about-to-be-launched newspaper. It is expected that a number of other Shaam loyalists may also depart. Keep in mind that Jang will have to contend not only with the departure of some of its biggest names, but also eventual competition from the announced newspaper. (Incidentally, the announcement also shows that ARY - currently languishing near the bottom of the media market - felt it needed a print presence to combat the Jang / Geo media juggernaut and even the daily Express / Express TV combine. Jang had earlier lost a number of its most well known columnists to Express which had thrown oodles of money to wean them away.)

Shaam: change of ships

But was Mahmood Shaam's departure as out-of-the-blue as most believe?

Those who know Shaam had been saying for a while that he seemed deeply unhappy at Jang of late. Part of the reason had been the synergy promoted by MSR between Jang and sister concerns such as The News and Geo. In the last one year, The News' exclusive investigative reports and some op-ed writers had been made an automatic staple of Jang as well and some of Geo's anchors were given their own columns in Jang. Obviously, regardless of the business and editorial sense of this sharing, it had led to Shaam losing a lot of control over his own paper. But he had also been resentful of what he often saw as an agenda-driven hard line taken by the Jang Group against the government, and imposed as a fait accompli on the staid Jang. He was also said to be not particularly happy about the suddenly increased interference from MSR in the day-to-day workings of the paper.

A final nail in the coffin may have been his quiet demotion from Group Editor (overall editor of all Jang editions) to Editor of the Karachi edition at some point over the last year, which went by almost unremarked. When this actually happened, I am not entirely sure, but the print-line that used to run his designation as 'Group Editor' was quietly reworked to name him simply as the 'Editor' (one source claims he was initially designated 'Executive Editor' after the 'demotion' as well). It should be pointed out that this may reflect simply a change of nomenclature at Jang, but certainly a change that was never explained.

But it wasn't as if Mahmood Shaam himself had been simply a passive observer in the drama unfolding around him. We have it from unimpeachable sources that as far back as 2007, he and Rana Tahir Mehmood (the resident editor of Jang 'Pindi who has now left for ARY with Shaam) had attempted to purchase controlling stakes in a floundering television channel. The then owner of the channel initially believed them to be working as front-men for MSR but alleges that investigations revealed that they were actually fronting for former Punjab chief minister and PML(Q) leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. Whether the allegations of who was behind the buying attempt are true or not, keep in mind that this happened while both gentlemen were working for the Jang Group.

Insiders at the Jang Group, in fact, even though they claim they were unaware of the ARY developments before they became public, say they knew that trouble was brewing on the Shaam front, but believed he was in negotiations with Dunya TV. According to them, they were caught unawares by the ARY news simply because their focus was on Dunya. Dunya, as you may recall, is owned by Mian Aamir Mahmood, a PML(Q) politico considered close to Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

There were other unproven rumours that swirled around Shaam, which centred on the contracts his son's media consultancy company bagged from the military, as well as some wealthy Jang op-ed writers whose columns were alleged to be ghost-written by him.

Whatever the rumours may have been, however, obviously the Jang Group did not consider them to have merit enough to have problems with Shaam. But his high profile defection, and its yet-to-come fallout, has certainly left Jang on the back foot. It will be interesting to see how MSR reacts and whether ARY can ever pose a serious challenge to the current leaders of the media market.

Watch this space for updates.