My Two Cents !!

For a very long period, we all kept on hearing of GEO English. The Urdu channel already owns the lion share of industry, so the hopes were high for English too. Everyone I knew including myself was very optimistic and was expecting it to be as big as GEO News but all hopes went down the drain.

The teams, sets, graphics, and every ingredient required to cook up a channel was ready, only finishing touch left when JANG Group took it off and wrapped up all. I happened to catch sight of the channel, pre-launch, and was truly impressed with their homework. When all were ready, what (who) made them close-down such a huge project?

Azhar Abbas, Ex-News Director of DAWN News.

When the man, mentioned above moved to GEO News from DAWN, saw the feasibility of channel and forecasted that English news will be a financial disaster. Hence, GEO thought of closing down one channel and face market astonishment instead of seeing declining sales of channel commercials. Azhar Abbas predicted that English News Channels have no market in Pakistan due to the understanding of channel.
My question is simple, what was DAWN thinking?

They didn’t seem to pay heed to what their Ex-Director did and on what grounds. I think Mr. Abbas did the right thing. After all, why and who would like to watch an English News channel from Pakistan?

Anyone of us who is capable of understanding this secondary language of Pakistan, will definitely watch BBC or CNN not DAWN, where ramp models are reading news and managing to make a blast. Only fine documentaries don’t get you commercials. Authenticity, reach, and connection with audience matters the most.

And DAWN News just missed it all.

Countdown Begins!!!!

Recently, I came across a lot of news roaming about disastrous DAWN and its shut down. I am very disappointed to know why people are in a state of shock. It is such old news, after all.


I remember how in early 2009, one of my friend sent me an email directed from DAWN News Editor to the departments. I was astonished and thankful at the same time. Why thankful? They spared the needy . Astonishment came to me because of the way they cut down their expenses. Have a look at excerpt from it:


“We have had to resort to more than one measure to rationalize the size of the work force and save costs. We are proposing a pay cut of 5 per cent (for colleagues on salaries between 50,000 and 100,000) to 10 percent (above 100,000) at our three major broadcast centres – Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore. Colleagues on salaries below 50,000 will not face a cut. Other team members have agreed bigger cuts which go into effect on April 1, 2009.”

Now what does it actually tell you guys?

They were on the brinks already. This email above created chaos among the top level employees, the 50 below remained contented and still are I suppose, after reading Café Pyala.

Soon, very soon, media will grieve the death of DAWN.





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