While load shedding has ruined many businesses and industries and destroyed routine life, it has proved to be a blessing for some businesses. It could be an astonishing fact for many people but in reality some websites of Pakistani dramas, talk shows and other programmes were being browsed regularly these days due to load shedding, which increased traffic on these websites. A number of websites such as paktvforums.com, vidpk.com, friendskorner.com, dramasonline.com and desironak.com were being browsed regularly by housewives and families interested in watching dramas, talk shows and other entertainment programmes.
In the recent wave of load shedding, when power was closed anytime making it difficult for people to watch dramas and family shows, a number of dramas such as Humsafar, Maat, Meray Katil Meray Dildar, Jahaiz, Kash Mae Teri Beti Na Hoti, Ek Nazar Meri Taraf, Sanjha and Ahmed Habib Ke Betian were among the programmes being watched on the Internet. Although these websites were operating for the last two to three years but traffic on these sites was not high during usual days but in recent weeks, rating of these websites had increased sharply. Web traffic played an important role in increasing ratings of websites and generating revenue. A number of international companies such as Yahoo, Google and MSN place advertisements on these sites, which had good rankings and high traffic. Text-based websites were also important but websites with dramas, movies and graphics consumed more bandwidth of users giving more traffic to hosts and increase the latter’s ratings.
Housewives said that they were very depressed due to load shedding and missed episodes. They said that unscheduled load shedding had played havoc not only with their routine lives but also their entertainment. “Pakistani dramas have become interesting and gained popularity once again in recent years and people are watching them keenly,” housewife Mahrukh Sohail said, adding that load shedding destroyed all leisure time of families but at least now they can watch dramas and other programmes on the Internet. “I was very happy when my son said that I can watch my favourite dramas on the Internet,” she said. Another housewife Fiza Sharif said that with the Internet, she can now easily enjoy dramas. “I can rewind and forward my favourite dramas and there are no advertisements in these programmes,” she added. A website owner said that traffic of such websites had increased during load shedding. He said that in normal days traffic was good but not that much as it was during load shedding. “Our traffic increases at least 100 percent when there is load shedding,” he said.
