(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
ISLAMABAD – The state broadcaster has expressed serious reservations over reports of licences being granted to new private current affairs channels, threatening to “do their work if they want to do ours”.
Following reports of over 50 new private satellite channels being granted licences under various categories, a statement by PTV News read: “Mazaaq ki bhee hudd hoti hai yaar. Hum kya murr gaey hain!”
The statement used words like ‘hudd-haraam’, ‘nikammay’ and ‘pitthoo’ to describe private news channels, old and new, as the state broadcaster announced that it is likely to sue them for copyright infringements.
“You were asked to bend over not crawl, that’s what we do, that’s our copyright, that’s our mandate and no one, we repeat, no one can take our mandate away from us,” read the statement, adding “not even YRA, 29, LOB and all those other confused sitting-on-the-fence types either.”
The network has threatened it could include factual reports in their news bulletins, something, it said, ‘these new and old private channels should be doing anyway’.
PTV News spokesperson said that a conspiracy was being hatched to break the monopoly of the network over state propaganda, adding that such cheap tactics would not go unchallenged.
“In the presence of a state broadcaster there was no need for more state broadcasters. Matlab yeh bhee tou wohee bolain gay jo hum abhee bol rahay hain,” said the spokesperson.
“As if the current news channels weren’t already challenging us with a copy-paste of our news scripts, they are now bringing in more of us…in the same market.”
“This is what PTV has always stood for. We have always, always, believed in making people believe in things we have refused to believe ourselves. Such is our dedication,” he said.
PTV also ran a special transmission ‘Bewafa Sanam’ featuring ‘selected’ songs including Quit Playing Games With My Heart, and a Pakistani remake of the 1995 song Accha Sila Dya Tu Nay Merey Pyaar Ka.
“We just want to know why. Why you do this?” said a senior PTV official refusing to reveal his identity.
