ISLAMABAD:Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting on Wednesday underlined the need for allocating government advertisements to the television channels other than of news.
“Entertainment, religious and sports television channels have more viewership than the news channels. Therefore, it is imperative to give them government ads so that awareness messages can be spread cross-society,” said Senator Faisal Javed while chairing the committee meeting here.
Citing examples of the government campaigns on anti-coronavirus standard operating procedures, he said such awareness were needed to be aired on the entertainment, religious and sports channels that were mostly watched by major segments of the society including children and women.
Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting informed the forum that a policy was being framed to fix rates for advertisements on the entertainment channels.
Secretary Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Shahera Shahid said there was a need to study the market so that the best possible rates could be fixed.
The committee chairman called for stepping up efforts in that regard so that the policy could be implemented at the earliest.
Senator Faisal also raised a major flaw in the advertisement policy saying as to why not the weekend included in the prime time slab as the TV channels grabbed more viewership on those days.
The committee members appreciated the information ministry for providing complete data on the amount spent on ad-campaigns by the federal government for the periods of 2008-13, 2013-18 and 2018 to-date, both in print, electronic and on FM radio channels.
The forum was told that the Press Information Department (PID) had no data of the advertisements given to the electronic media during the tenure of Pakistan Peoples Party (2008-13). During the period, there was no centralized mechanism in that regard as the ministries and departments publicized the ads independently.
The mechanism was centralized after 2013 on the initiative of the then Principal Information Officer (PIO).
The committee chairman asked the information ministry to accumulate the data from the ministries and departments concerned and submit it with the committee in the next meeting.
The meeting was informed that the amount of advertisement doled out to print media during Pakistan People’s Party tenure was Rs 13 billion, while Rs 17.7 billion during tenure of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) during (2008-13) and the incumbent government so far spent Rs 7.2 billion for the ad-campaigns in print media.
An amount of Rs 6.1 billion was spent on ad-campaigns in electronic media during the PML-N tenure, while Rs two billion by the present government during its ongoing stint, it was further informed.
Senator Faisal asked the representatives of Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) and All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) to explain as to why the salaries of the working journalist were being delayed despite getting such huge amount in lieu off ads.
The representatives of PBA and APNS said there had been still huge dues pending from the tenures of previous governments.
They said a major chunk of outstanding dues were from the tenure of previous PPP government tenure.
Senator Irfan-ul-Haque Siddiqui asked the ministry to evolve a mechanism which could ensure speedy payment of the ads to the media houses. Days of payment should be reduced to 30 from 90.
He also asked the representatives of APNS and PBA to point out those media houses that were not paying salaries of their employees.
Both the bodies agreed to stop payment of ads to those media houses that were delaying or not paying salaries to their employees.
The information ministry officials told the committee that an online mechanism had been introduced to check regular publication of the registered newspapers.
All those dailies that were not published regularly were being cancelled.
The committee chairman appreciated the information ministry to bring the number of dailies getting government advertisements to 516 from thousands.
As regard to the allegation of using advertisement as a tool to influence editorial content of media houses, the committee was told that the advertisement was being given in line with the tariffs fixed for different categories on the basis of their viewership.
The meeting deferred agenda number two pertaining to consideration of the Bill titled ‘The Protection of Journalist Bill 2021’ referred by the House on November 15, 2021.
Senator Faisal said the agenda would be taken up in the next meeting as the mover of bill Senator Saleem Manviwalla was not present due to official engagements.