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.