Cable boycott: Ten joyful hours of ‘no breaking news, no hard-talk’
This is what the people in the federal capital had to say about a complete boycott by cable operators of all private television channels for 10 hours on Saturday:
“It was complete sakoon.com really,” said a student.
“A big thank you to the cable operators. I only missed the cricket match on a private TV channel,” said a businessman.
“It was a change in my routine. But it was good,” remarked another.
Elaborating further on “sakoon.com”, Nauman, a local university student, said there was no news of bomb blasts, murders and violence on TV. “It was one of the loveliest cricket matches that I ever watched. There were no news channels telling me that people were dying somewhere in some part of my country or elsewhere,” he said.
However, Nauman’s cousin, Habib, a businessman, disagreed with him. “It was because of Pakistan’s cricket match that I did not feel the absence of news much but it was wrong to suspend the news channels,” said Habib.
He said people wanted to know what was happening around them. News channels, he added, are the major source of information for the people.
However, he did not miss the talk shows. “Talk shows have nothing interesting these days,” Habib said.
Two others, Ghulam Sarwar and Shabbir Ahmed, however, not only missed the breaking news, but their favourite talk shows as well. They said they were used to watching their favourite anchors taking on politicians in hard-talk.
“These 10 hours of boycott were so boring,” said Sarwar.
“The cricket match compensated it to some extent,” Ahmed added. But he still missed his favourite talk show on a leading TV channel.
About the same programme, a businessman from sector F-7 reacted in a different manner. “Watching this particular anchor, it always appeared that there will be no Pakistan the next day,” said Sajjad Ahmed. He said the talk shows had become monotonous and most opinianised.
“It is the same anti-government rhetoric every day. So it was a pleasant break indeed. I enjoyed the cricket match,” he added.
Muhammad Ibrahim, who was having tea at Hot Spot in F-7/2, was particularly critical of talk shows.
“If you tell a rehriwala (pushcart vendor) that Rs400,000 were spent on a dinner party at the Presidency, how would he, never having seen such money in all his life, react,” said Ibrahim asking for maturity in the talk shows.
Some even suggested penalties for those giving false news before confirming it in a rate race of ‘breaking news’. “Once there was gas cylinder blast somewhere in Islamabad and all channels started running news that a bomb blast had occurred only to correct themselves afterwards,” said Kamran Arshad.
He felt the news channels had made people sadists. “The channels try to make news out of anything and everything,” said Arshad.
So it was a good break from him. “I sighed of relief. I was sick of watching blood on TV screens every day.”
Published in The Express Tribune, March 21st, 2011.
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