Dubai, Nov 17: Geo TV, Pakistan's top news channel operating from here and which was shut down early on Saturday due to "pressure" from the military regime, is holding talks with authorities to restart its broadcasting.
"The channel is talking to the Dubai authorities as well as back in Pakistan for restarting the programmes," said Shahid Masood, group Executive Director of Dubai-based Geo TV said. Earlier the channel refused to sign a government code of conduct under the emergency rule.
Hoping that the channel will be back in operation soon, Masood said: "our other entertainment and sports channels have been allowed to operate but on the condition that we do not show any news or current affairs programmes on these channels."
When asked whether they were looking at alternative avenues for broadcasting its news programmes, Masood said, "All options are available".
The channel, along with ARY channel, was told by the local authorities that they will not be able to beam programmes from midnight UAE time (Friday). Officials of both the channels said the Pakistan government had influenced authorities in the UAE to shut down their broadcasts from the Dubai media city.
Masood said apart from the news channel, Geo Super, which had won the India-Pakistan cricket series broadcasting rights is also not seen. "People in Pakistan are unable to watch the
matches because of this action."
There are 200 people working for the channel in Dubai and it was work as usual for them, said Masood, adding that all of them were dejected after the channel stopped working.
"I myself is very depressed since it is the first time a Pakistani channel could not be seen its own country. It is different matter if you want to ban channels from another country," he said.
News anchors came on geo news around midnight Pakistan time to announce that their channel had been ordered to go off the air as result of the continued deadlock between the
Pakistani authorities and the media channels, following the imposition of the emergency in the country.
"I am perhaps only presenter who had to announce the shutting down of the channel," he added.
Geo TV has, in all, eight channels up-linking from its offices at the Dubai Media City since 2002 and has three beams covering Pakistan, the middle east and the US and Britain.
In Pakistan all Geo channels were blocked by the military regime after the imposition of the emergency but on Friday two main channels, Dawn News and Aaj were back on air, with Aaj announcing that two its most popular talks shows, hosted by Talat Hussain, Nusrat Javeed and Mushtaq Mihas, were suspended temporarily.
"Geo news was shut down because it had refused to budge. After six years of objective and highly professional telecasts, which earned the channel the honour of being the most popular TV channel, the government of Pakistan put it off the air on November 4 after emergency was imposed," he added.
Its role in the judicial crisis, which started on March 9, when the President filed a reference against the Chief Justice, was highly applauded, domestically and internationally.
Sources said the government first asked the geo officials to stop the most popular programmes of popular TV hosts Shahid Masood, Hamid Mir and Kamran Khan without offering any tangible reason why they should be stopped.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, November 17, 2007, 00:00