Dawn criticizes PTV

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 27 January 2020

Dawn has condemned PTV's decision to increase the license fee, arguing it further alienates the public. The editorial criticizes PTV's lack of direction and calls for urgent restructuring for better service.

Summary

ISLAMABAD—Dawn has harshly criticized the PTV decision to increase the license fee for domestic consumers from Rs35 to Rs100, saying those running the public broadcaster have no strategy except to pass the buck on to cash-strapped consumers.

In an editorial – PTV license fee, the paper said the PTV’s intent was to engender even less goodwill among the public towards it, the PTV may have certainly succeeded. The paper reminded the PTV that the electricity consumers “have already experienced an eye-watering increase in power tariffs over the past 18 months.”

Dawn said today PTV is a shadow of its glory days. “Nowadays, instead of being a public service for the people, it has become, at best, an irrelevant and antiquated behemoth and, at worst, a political tool for the government of the day.”

It also reminded the PTI government of its promise of making PTV autonomous on the lines of the BBC model. “The PTI’s 2018 election manifesto pledged to make the PTV autonomous, with its own board of governors, “similar to the BBC model” — a claim that was often repeated by its government’s first information minister. It is clear, however, that the change that was promised is nowhere in sight.”

The only way out for the PTV, according to Dawn, “is considerable restructuring of the corporation, including ensuring a completely independent and autonomous board, with a mission to deliver high-quality public interest programming…”

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