Searching For (Yet Another) New Dawn

Had the real-life DawnNews saga been a prime-time soap opera on that troubled channel, its ratings would at least have registered some mild signs of life instead of languishing well below the radar screen. Dozens of redundancies and a half-baked makeover later, the country’s first, and soon to be former, English language channel continues to search desperately for an identity and lurch from crisis to crisis in search of its true self. The latest twist in the tortuous tale: a complete break from of its ‘burger’ Angrezi past and a rediscovery of its native roots. So help us God.

After recently switching to Urdu at certain times during the day to attract some kind of stable viewership, DawnNews has now decided to stop being the confusing hybrid it is and go all the way. Sources say that from May 15 the channel will switch entirely to Urdu language broadcasts and step into the overcrowded lion’s den where Geo, Express News, Dunya, Samaa, ARY and Aaj and dozens of others lie hungrily in wait.

The most recent casualty of all the upheavals at the channel is former BBC hand and head of current affairs Mazhar Zaidi, who staff last saw at work on Friday. Insiders say that, fed up with the lack of direction, Zaidi walked out and resigned on Saturday and is now mulling over returning to the BBC.

Wusatullah Khan, another BBC luminary brought in to plug a gaping hole in the sinking vessel, has also rediscovered the charms of his former employer and plans to jump ship and return to the mother ship BBC. Clearly, his laid-back prime time Urdu programme 'Bolna Zaroori Hai' had failed to stem DawnNews’ ratings rot, with viewers deciding that dekhna zaroori nahin hai.

Meanwhile, the desperate attempts to break with its ABCD past and establish some kind of desi street cred produced what must be the most ill-judged concept in programming history: 'Chaudhry Ki Baithak.' If the idea was to force the teeming masses to get addicted to the programme, let’s just say they didn’t - and for a very good reason. Who among the great unwashed, let alone anyone else with half a brain, would ditch their Star Pluses and Geos to watch a Chaudhry Shujaat impersonating refugee from Geo’s 'Hum Sab Umeed Se Hain' interact night after night with a hapless guest and a man with a high-pitched voice and an exaggerated Pakhtun accent (a sure sign of a comic running out of ideas)? And this, by the way, was meant to be a serious programme. No wonder the Mazhar Zaidis and Wusatullahs fled, deciding their time was up!

PS: Meanwhile, the long quest for a new editor of the Dawn group’s Herald magazine is finally over, if rumours are to be believed. Lahore-based Badar Alam, formerly of Dawn’s Lahore bureau and The News on Sunday, is the man chosen for the hot seat following the departure of (former TNS editor) Arifa Noor, who is soon to be anointed Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad.

So another Lahori gets the Herald crown, following Aamer Ahmed Khan and Ms Noor, making one wonder whether Dawn head honcho Amber Saigol can only feel secure if her key staffers at the prestigious magazine are brought in from the city she has adopted as her own after her marriage to a Saigol.

Sunset at DawnNews

Ok folks, so, I fear we may be over-doing the whole Dawn / DawnNews thingy with yet another post on the same. And some of the epithets hurled at the latter (YawnNews, I'm thinking of you) may begin to rub of on to Cafe Pyala. But what do you do when the (dawn)news just keeps on coming?

And this is a big one, trust me.

So, according to our insiders who kindly informed us, Dawn Media Group head honcho, Ms. Amber Saigol, addressed the workers at DawnNews yesterday on the floor of the newsroom and basically informed them that she wanted to simply shut down the channel because of the losses it had been incurring since its birth. But that she had been persuaded by the management (which would include her daughter Nazafreen Saigol) to give the channel 'one last chance.' So that is what she was going to do.

That last chance would involve restructuring the channel as a hybrid Urdu-English channel and a bunch of sackings. We hear that from February 15, DawnNews will broadcast Urdu bulletins from 9 to 12 in the morning as well at prime time, i.e. 9 to 12 in the evening. The English bulletins and programming would make up the rest of the day, primarily focused on audiences in North America.

 Naveen Naqvi and Nadia Zaffar: Dawn and out

Now, not only does this mean that some prime time programmes such as Saima Mohsin's NewsEye would eventually face the axe (since they clash with the time allotted for Urdu), but that a number of people working on the English programming would also become redundant. A big round of sackings took place almost immediately. So far some 40 people have been issued their pink slips across the country, including 27 from Karachi alone. Among the 'big names' retrenched include anchors Naveen Naqvi and Razeshta Sethna, and senior producer Nadia Zafar and anchor Mariam Zaidi (whose only claim to being a 'big name' was admittedly that she said she was in an interview in latest issue of Xpoze magazine). The entire Current Affairs / 'Infotainment' department under Mazhar Zaidi has been demolished (though he remains) with even his senior producer Nofil Naqvi choosing to walk rather than accept a pay cut.

'It' girl no more

According to our moles, the criteria for the sackings is simply the cost of the personnel. Those anchors with salaries below Rs. 60,000 - 70,000 have been retained while the rest have been let go. A number of cameramen have also been retrenched, with only those with salaries below Rs. 25,000 retained. A number of personnel, such as Creative Department head Alia Chughtai, had already resigned earlier.

As for the rumoured move to shift the newsroom to Islamabad, it seems this is still under consideration, though production would still continue to happen in Karachi. The only explanation anyone can seem to come up with such a bizarre idea is that the current head of news, Mubashir Zaidi, who shifted to Karachi from Islamabad a few months ago, would like to move back. Suffice it to say that, if these rumours are correct, this would be a bigger disaster than DawnNews currently.

Now, I'm no expert on restructuring television channels, but it would seem to me that this will not work out, for a number of reasons:

1) A language-hybrid channel is unlikely to develop a brand loyalty and is likely to simply confuse its viewership.

2) It seems DawnNews is chasing after viewers who watch other Urdu channels such as Geo, Express, Aaj and ARY. But why should they switch to DawnNews for a mere 6 hours a day?

3) Those personnel who have chosen to stay with a pay cut have probably only opted to do so as a stop-gap measure, until they are able to secure a better-paying job elsewhere. The remaining staff are likely to be feeling equally insecure and demoralized and will probably jump ship as soon as they have the chance.

4) You get what you pay for. When you get rid of your celebrity presenters / best cameramen and feature producers (by far the best thing on DawnNews was its documentaries) how would you create your niche in the glut of television channels? Are you then not ensuring that the restructuring does not stand a real chance?

5) No business enterprise (and I'm not just talking about television channels here) has ever survived with half-hearted measures that in reality become a case of 'throwing good money after bad.' DawnNews was probably a losing proposition to begin with in the manner it was conceived.

And how long would Ms. Saigol give for her 'last chance'? Apparently four to five months. No wonder many within the channel are of the opinion that DawnNews will be shut down by the end of the current fiscal year.

A shame, but there you have it.