Investment in media industry to touch $4b mark by 2016: PEMRA

JournalismPakistan.com | Published 10 years ago

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority has predicted in its annual report that investment in media industry would touch the $4 billion-mark by the end of financial year 2016.

In a press release issued Thursday, the authority said that its acting chairman Parvez Rathore presented the PEMRA’s performance report of its operations and accounts for the financial year 2010-14 to President Mamnoon Hussain.

Under section 17 of PEMRA (Amendment) Act-2007, the authority is bound to compile an annual report for each financial year to the president and arrange its publication and circulation to the media and public.

“Though the report has been delayed for four years due to frequent changes in PEMRA, yet we are striving to make it a regular annual feature to keep abreast all our valued stakeholders about regulatory initiatives and their micro and macro economic impact on national landscape,” the chairman said.

The report reveals that PEMRA has so far issued 91 licenses for indigenous satellite TV. Of this, 50 licenses are of entertainment category, 35 news and current affairs, 4 educational TV, 1 Health and 1 Agro TV channel licenses have been issued.

Besides, 26 landing rights permissions have been issued to off-shore channels. Similarly, 3,600 cable TV, 6 MMDS, 1 IPTV, 4 Mobile TV and 2 mobile audio licenses have been issued by PEMRA which are contributing remarkably as catalyst of socio-political change in the society.

The report says the media industry received a cumulative investment of about $3.0 billion in distinct forms and has created employment for more than 200,000 people of diversified qualification and skills.

“If this trend continued, it is estimated that the cumulative investment would touch $4 billion mark by the end of financial year 2016,” the report says.

On operational account, the PEMRA report says that illegal up-linking by three channels was stopped. The authority raided more than 21,000 cable TV operators during the period and 2,803 systems were seized.

Nearly 100 foreign channels of numerous types being run illegally on cable networks were also closed and notably six illegal FM radio stations preaching hate and extremism were shut down, the report adds.