Flooding the airwaves, PEMRA opens auction. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) initiated or held an auction on Wednesday at its headquarters in Islamabad for issuing 70 more licenses for satellite TV broadcast stations.The auction will continue until the end of first week of May, during which licenses will be auctioned in seven categories — news, current affairs, education, sports, health, entertainment and agriculture. Representatives from 187 companies have been participating in the auction.
According to the details, licenses for eight new channels will be offered in news category, 27 in entertainment, 12 channels of regional languages, 12 in education, five in sports, four in health and two in the agriculture category. As many as 21 companies participated in the open-bid round for auction of eight licenses for news and current affairs. Out of the 35 companies pre-qualified for the auction, 14 didn’t take part. Al Kamal Media Private Company placed the highest bid in the sector at Rs283.5 million.
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PEMRA Chairman Saleem Baig inaugurated the auction. In his speech, he said that 70 licenses will be issued today. He hoped that each TV channel would provide livelihood to a large number of people.He said that the authority works in consultation with all stakeholders. Currently 88 local TV channels and 227 radio channels are being operated in the country. He said that eight Internet Protocol TV licenses have been issued, besides one DTH which is expected to be operational soon. The chairman expressed his hope that the auction would be held in a transparent manner. The base price for news and current affairs TV license had been fixed at Rs63.5m, entertainment TV license at Rs48.5m, and regional at Rs10m. The successful bidder will have to submit 15 per cent of the bidding price today. The association has now appealed to the prime minister to intervene and stop the process. According to a press release, the PBA had filed the petition in compliance with an order of the Sindh High Court.
However some criticism has been aimed at the continued faith in news media etc. and less emphasis on a more suitable system of channel for children of 3 till 8. And considering these efforts to improve and lure more audience to digital standards of TV bear fruit, Pakistan may as well be taking the right steps to ensure they do not lag behind in technological advancement, because Pakistan should try to even improve digital on demand streaming as they should try to move out of this backward image and keep up with increasing technologies. PTA, I believe should follow suit and use their contacts with China to import better LTE equipment and soon afterwards start to realistically and slowly set up 5G in Pakistan with the help of companies like ZTE and Huawei as both companies are banned in America and Europe and Pakistan could benefit from this.
