Daily Times

It is becoming increasingly hard to justify and sustain the provision of subsidies to Pakistan Television (PTV), especially when everyone in the country is forced to partake in this funding. A similar concern was raised in a writ petition filed in the Lahore High Court in April by PTI leader and Public Accounts Committee of Punjab Assembly, Chairman, Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed and his council, Advocate Sheraz Zaka, which challenged the imposition of a monthly PTV license fee of Rs. 35 through electricity bills. This blanket charge affects all power consumers regardless of whether they obtain the services of the public or even own a television.

While PTV’s council maintains that the state television rightfully enjoys the right to public funding according to the Telegraph and Wireless Act, 1970, its advisors did not pay much attention to a basic difference between taxes and services. As was rightly argued by the petitioner then, any citizen not “consuming the services of PTV (or) receiving its signals” should not be charged such fee through electricity bills. The present arrangements do not differentiate while imposing charges regardless of whether the consumers are mosques, graveyards, or even offices–places that normally do not even have television sets. Even though many may not either be aware of these charges or consider the nominal amount meaningful enough, the fact that their net collection from more than 20 million power subscribers by WAPDA and other local electric supply companies across the country earns PTV a revenue worth more than seven billion rupees every year.

The key question for PTV remains how it has benefitted from such a significant amount over the years. In the last five decades, the institution has always pleaded poverty. Since official sources put down the losses suffered during the last two years alone at more than Rs 1.12 billion (the actual figure might even be higher), the state television is always in need of an extensive assistance from the government in the form of bailout plans and other subsidies. Another oft-lamented shortcoming is the dismal state of its programming, which makes use of outdated infrastructure and dilapidated studios to produce poor-quality content. Expenditure on human resources, particularly the high management costs, eats up almost 70 percent of its budget, leaving the network with only 30 percent to be spent on programming.

There are now so many entertainment options available in the country besides PTV and distributing this license fee among all television broadcasters would yield the authorities greater benefits, both in terms of production quality and revenue collection. However, in the present circumstances when only PTV receives such financial assistance, it should at least be expected to improve upon its editorial as well as entertainment content. It should be allowed to run as an independent entity with liberalised editorial policies and impartial news coverage. In lieu of its increasing reliance on purchasing programmes from private sources, PTV should utilise its resources to rebuild its productions in accordance with its own golden legacy.

The license fee model has already been abandoned by countries like Australia, Belgium, Singapore and even India. Parliamentary committees in the UK are also gearing up for changes in the sources of funding presently available to the BBC services. It is hoped that Pakistan would follow the international community in replacing the outdated license model with newer alternatives that do not penalise the public that does not tune into PTV, especially when such imposition is not justified by the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation Act 1973. *