The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday directed Pakistan Television (PTV) Managing Director to submit till October 17 his statement indicating the policy in televising news and current affairs programs on the TV channel.
A three-judge bench comprising of Chief Justice (CJ) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain took up a decade old pending case moved by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1999 regarding allocation of time to political parties on the state owned TV channel.
The bench also ordered the PTV MD to indicate in his report the rating of its news and current affairs programs in urban areas.
The bench noted in its order that the funding for PTV was extracted from the public exchequer through different government apparatuses, TV ads and through public contribution.
During the course of proceedings, the CJ enquired from the PTV MD Yousuf Baig Mirza about the policy for controlling contents of its programs and observed that being a public owned company, it should allocate time to all the political parties.
The MD replied that currently PTV was running PTV News, Home, Gold, Sports, National, Bolan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) channels and its contents were determined by a six-member programming committee.
However, he admitted that the decision of the committee was not absolute. The CJ expressed his displeasure with the contents of PTV News and the current affairs programs and observed that it was making earning from the citizens of the country. The PTV MD said that its 100 per cent unlisted shares were owned by the government and it was a self generation company which was earning through TV ads and license fee. The PTV chief apprised the bench that their policy had been changed completely when compared to the year 1999 as there was vast openness in their news and current affairs programs. Counsel for the petitioner Dr Abdul Basit claimed that the SC had conducted 10 days proceedings in Quetta over missing persons case but PTV skipped its reporting.
The CJ questioned as to why the news about judiciary were kept at the bottom of the bulletins.
The MD contended that they gave preference to news worthiness and claimed that 99.99 per cent TV tickers were aired after due credibility. The CJ disagreed with his stance over the issue and observed that every person should get the feeling that PTV was as good a channel as the other private channels. He said that PTV news viewership in urban areas was zero per cent.
However, on the request of PTV MD, the bench granted him time to submit his statement in writing.
