There are three main Pakistani channels that we all watch for entertainment. We either tune into Hum TV, ARY or GEO to watch good quality Pakistani dramas. These three channels are definitely the top 3 channels that come to our mind; though the priority sequence may differ from person to person.

These channels have cut throat competition amongst each other and they constantly try to get ahead of each other in terms of ratings and viewership; especially ARY and GEO. They have adopted different marketing strategies from time to time; social media has been their focus for a long time now because it is the best medium to reach out to people. They both have also tried to introduce shows with different concepts (many a times they turn out to be vulgar and cheap) which will appeal to the masses. Yeh Zindagi Hai and Quddusi Sahab Ki Bewa are the classic examples of such shows. They even compete aggressively through their morning shows. The constant high budgeted weddings of celebrities on morning shows are done to attract viewers to watch their channel. They was also a time when they started competing through the foreign content (Indian and Turkish) whose popularity was at its peak a little while back.

If this was not enough, they have now come up with a new strategy. ARY and GEO are making contracts with Production Houses which will restrict the shows produced by them to their channel only. A&B Production owned by Baber Javed and Asif Raza Mir has joined hands with GEO and will now produce shows exclusively for GEO.

ARY was not expecting this move and were pretty shaken up because they lost one their most important production houses to GEO. However, they quickly came up with a strategy to counter this move. They joined hands with Six Sigma which is owned by Humayun Saeed and Shehzad Naseeb, and now Six Sigma will produce mostly for ARY. Apart from that, ARY is now also encouraging new emerging production houses which includes names like M&M Productions (owned by Misbah Khalid), MasterMind productions (owned by Hasan Zia), Iron Line Productions (owned by S.M. Abbas) and the recently launched production house by Fahad Mustafa (Big Bang Productions) which launched its first two shows, Meri Beti, and Mere Humrahi on ARY. ARY was taking a huge risk by giving chance to new production houses, but their risk has definitely paid off as new production houses are coming up with new concepts and increasing their ratings.

ARY is also collaborating with movie producers and is trying to diversify itself. It is a very smart move taken by them to go one step ahead of GEO. They have collaborated with Humayun Saeed for Main Hoon Shahid Afridi and with Footprint Entertainment for the Oscar nominated Zinda Bhaag. ARY has also collaborated with Mandviwalla Productions for the biggest blockbuster of this year ‘WAAR’ which has broken all previous records of Pakistani cinema, and has earned 11.4 million on its very first day and even after so many weeks the cinemas are still housefull for the movie.

Since HUM TV produces their own shows for their channel, they do not need to compete for production houses. Though it does try to compete on a small level, it is simply no match for ARY and GEO when it comes to marketing strategies or morning show budgets. The main USP of HUM TV is their high quality and high budgeted shows which is enough to attract viewers. One can easily recognize a drama produced by Momina Duraid Productions because of its outstanding quality. No other production house has been able to match up to them so far! HUM TV has a special place in the hearts of viewers and as long as they maintain their production values, the viewers will keep watching their show. Though I believe they should allow some quality production houses to air their shows on HUM TV too. Only a handful of shows from other production houses are seen on HUM TV right now.

I found it very odd that Fahad Mustafa opted for ARY to air his shows instead of HUM TV, when he himself is a host on HUM TV and has good relations with the channel. Does that mean HUM is reluctant to air shows from new production houses?

Only time will tell if this new strategy for competition will gain viewership for channels or will it cause the channels to lose its viewership because of lack of diversity.

Share your opinion about this new strategy adopted by GEO and ARY!

Mariam Shafiq

Many of us, including my own self, always criticized Living on the Edge and Waqar’s strategy of making it but let me be very fair this time, there are many reality shows that sound similar, look similar but we enjoy watching them and never criticized them because they don’t have a stamp of “Made in Pakistan” with them.

Waqar’s show was also criticized by Hindustan Times that its format is so similar MTV Roadies and this show is violating animal rights. I agree, that this show sounds much like MTV Roadies as I am a die-hard fan of roadies but there are many differences too. Roadies makers, Raghu and Ranvijay, have never shown guts to come up with some tasks that involve animals in show but Our Waqar Zaka does. Waqar Zaka made all points clear during an interview that there are certain confusions about the show including:

1 .Viewers usually complain that contestants of the show are paid. We can clearly watch that youngsters from Karachi to Peshawar come up with courage every year and try their luck to be a part of this show. And whatever they do or whatever they perform is not at all scripted. It’s their choice whether to become friends or turn into worst enemies.

2. They do ask personal questions during auditions and it is neither scripted nor they are try to make the situation dramatic. It’s just that they want to ask whether contestants are willing to show their life style, their background to the world or not. They never force their contestants to answer personal questions, if contestant is feeling uneasy.

3. They take serious measures to protect their contestants that is why during auditions, contestants have to pass through a pressure test so that they can check whether their nervous system is strong enough because this show is all about bravery and sometimes he comes up with such tasks that can affect people with weak nervous system.

4. Selection is based on the rule of person having nerves of steel and heart of gold. Gold hearted persons are difficult to find so we usually look for valor and bravery one can show. It is also about how they interact in front of camera and tell the world that how much daring they are. Some people often aim in breaking Guinness Book of World Records but again they never ask them to do so, it just adds to excitement and entertainment of show. Contestants have their own choice, all they want from them is to have some pre-prep with the help of which we they can judge and decide that contestant is capable enough to be a part of show or not.

5. Again, coming towards unoriginal content haters claim that this show is ditto copy of Roadies. To make it very clear let me tell all of you that Roadies is travel adventure show where contestants travel from one place to another and sometimes to different countries too.Whereas, in Waqar’s show contestants have to live in Waqar’s Den for 10 days and perform their tasks.

Secondly, Roadies auditions and standard of selection is completely different from Living on the Edge.They select contestant on the basis of their personality traits, their interaction with the judges and to some extent their achievements too but Waqar’s auditions are all about dares. I mean come on, if Superman series exists then was it considered a crime to make Spiderman, Batman series. If Roadies is on air then it doesn’t merely mean that other shows cannot make room for their popularity.

6. Coming to animal rights, firstly let me clear this point that Fear Factor is a show that is followed by most of us. Fear Factor team always add up animals to the tasks. Why on earth they are not questioned in the name of animal rights or so called ethics. A circus lion or monkey is being hit by his master while teaching tricks to it.Pay a visit to the nearest Lucky Irani Circus and you will find out that animals are properly trained to become scary and dangerous for events like our show. Why is there no hullabaloo on that? On serious note, they do not involve such tasks in show that can be called as abuse of animal. Waqar himself performs deadly dares before giving it a name of “task” to be performed next.

So let’s just be fair, this show is for entertainment and not for preaching. We have to judge a reality show by the entertainment it provides not what it teaches us.A reality show requires a lot of effort to be put in during the process of making, editing, direction and everything else and this is the reason why our country lags behind all other in making reality shows. We have to share the ideas that how can this show be made more successful rather than putting on comments full of hatred. Waqar is always open to suggestions and always take them positively if they are helpful enough.

What are you expecting from next season and how do you like this show ?

Do share your views.

Stay Blessed,
Rabia Basharat.

I’m writing this piece just to have a general idea about what our viewers think of the advertisements that we see these days. Advertisements are the strongest brain-feeding strategy that we have because it’s just a matter of few seconds but it does the trick of getting a message across completely. Just some catchy jingle or punch line can end up being with you forever. I remember back in those days I loved diamond supreme foam’s jingle which went on like ‘kaam kaam kaam’, plus punch line of Waves appliances has stayed with me which stated ‘waves, naam hi kaafi hai’. Shaan’s ‘Allhamdullilah, Shaan masalay aik munfarid naam’ is also something that often pops up in mind but I am kind of saddened to see the current advertisements that are running on our TV screens these days.

Right now, it’s just & ALL about Naach Gana. Let it be Sunsilk, Sooper, Q-Mobile, Sprite, Sanitary Napkins, Omore, 7UP, Coca Cola, Tarang, Pampers (kid doing belly dancing) & so on, all that we see in these ads are a bunch of youngsters or stars – basically a group that is dancing. I never knew that dancing was the best strategy to sell a product & attract customers. As far as I learnt during my Marketing sessions, it was all about making people aware of what your product is, not about how you’re going to act after you buy or use it. Right now, I hardly remember any ad or the punch line but what I do remember is jumping jacks dressed differently in each & every commercial. I do understand that someone might jump with joy by the sight of Tea tray approaching them but what I fail to understand is the need of people dancing just by seeing some sort of a tea-milk (Referring to Tarang)? Is it really such a joy? If anyone would dance while shampoo-ing, they’ll end up in the hospital because of the slippery surface it may produce. One might choke to death if they’d jump while drinking fizzy drinks & a biscuit will make you cough too if you eat it while dancing. Ice cream will melt because you’d be focusing more on the moves plus no one ever has been seen using a mobile while being air-bourne, it’s just not right. The ads look exactly as pointless as the arguments I’ve written.

Back then there were so many perfect advertisements that ran on the TV without being obscene or meaning-less. Currently, a couple is giving some sort of weird looks to each other, some girls dancing because they’re being free, boys dancing because they found something kewl to drink, these are the strategies our commercial makers have opted for because they think it’s the best way to make a mark in the viewers minds. No offence to Faisal Qureshi/Jawad Bashir’s team but I must confess that the useless comedy in Ufone commercials actually gets to our nerves now, we’ve seen you making us laugh for like a decade so it’s better to resort to something else, please.

I must say that Ramzan’s ad by Olpers every year has to be my favourite amongst all, where it doesn’t only focus on the festivity that month carries it also very decently promotes the product too. I think that’s the best way to make an impact & that is by emotionally stirring a thought rather than hiring people to dance for you just because you perceive your product to make someone dance like a lunatic in the middle of the road.

It looks like marketing people do not want to brain-storm & come up with the creative ideas or ways but in stead they just rely on the easiest way out because that involves lesser thinking. I hope that the commercial makers step back a little & re-think at how they want to promote their brands because these days it’s nothing more than a musical hideous headache that one sees in the form of our commercials & the only preventive measure is to change the channel.

Voice your opinions please.

Keep Supporting,
Cheers,
Zahra Mirza.

The competition between channels, writers, producers and everyone associated with the drama world has never been as intense as it has been in the past one year or so in particular. The reason being that there are innumerable entertainment channels that are readily available to the viewers, not to mention the fact that the drama makers do not only have competition from the local market but the foreign dramas are very popular among the masses too. Add to that the different mediums that are now available to promote these dramas – different entertainment sites, facebook, twitter and what not. In such a scenario the producers usually work very hard to sell their product to the viewers. We all know only too well that the viewers do get influenced by the hype created by the people concerned and automatically look forward to a certain drama.

Anyone who uses facebook would know how hard the people behind upcoming serial Mol are trying to get noticed. When all else fails post a picture of Fawad Khan and keep on telling people that he maybe part of the drama when there is nothing definite about it. I find it highly unprofessional that such tactics are used to gain people’s attention and also people who use Fawad Khan’s name to get fan following should also know that Fawad Khan does not have the credibility that he had once. The facebook pages keep on giving different kind of information every second day. One day they will tell you that Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan will be playing the lead and the next day they will give you names of five different actors who are being considered for the role. Yes, people do watch Fawad Khan’s plays till the end even if they are as bad as Ashk and Numm but isn’t it a insulting towards the actor who may actually end up playing that role? Also there is more to the play than just one person. How come we don’t see these facebook pages promoting the writer or the director? What is even more interesting is that the Mol’s official facebook page describes it is “an upcoming mega drama serial”…err talk about being over confident!

How many people still fall for these things? I find such attempts very desperate whether they are made by artists or producers. If an artist acts well, he or she is bound to have a good fan following even if the viewers do not see his or her fan page being advertised ten times a day on ten different pages. And at the end of the day it is the quality of the drama that counts and not the amount of effort that has been put into promoting it.

Fatima Awan

While film WAAR is making new records of business on box office, some journalist and film makers have also expressed their opinion on the film mainly on twitter; this article is based on tweets and re-tweets by them on WAAR. It should be noted that a Tweet is a personal opinion of any person, not to be considered as official point of view of organization they work for. I here also want to acknowledge that most of the names of journalists are taken from the article on film WAAR by Haseeb Ahmed who usually surprises us with some unique and interesting topics.

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, who won the first Oscar for film Saving Faces has watched WAAR and mentioned it on twitter

Raza Rumi, is a journalist who works mainly for Capital TV. Here are his tweets

Murtaza Solangi is a senior broadcast journalist and former director general of Radio Pakistan. His opinion on WAAR

Rafay Mehmood is an arts and cultural journalist who also writes film related critical reviews and articles for English Daily Express Tribune

Nadeem F Paracha is a journalist/columnist for English Daily Dawn

Omar R Quraishi is a journalist and editor for English Daily Express Tribune

Hamid Mir is a journalist and columnist and works for Daily Jang and Geo News. He is famous for his program Capital Talk.

I have tried to find some more professional critic opinion on WAAR, but apart from Rafay Mehmood, Murtaza Solangi and Sharmeen Obaid, there is same rhetoric of funding by ISPR and army rather than on technical aspects of film. On a personal note, I would say from ages we complain our government is not supporting local cinema and films which off course is true. Now If ISPR a government organization has provided logistics support for a film, what is wrong in it, in the end it all counts towards support and prosperity of local cinema.

Also now our local cinema is reviving there is a serious need for some film critics and journalist too. In past we had some very talented and professional film critics and journalists like Ilyas Rashidi, Ali Sufiyan Afaqi, Yaseen Goreja, Riaz ur Rehman Saghar, Hope to see more youngster coming as positive critics who will  follow footsteps of these legends.

Thanks.

Rashid Nazir Ali

Our drama industry is our pride and source of entertainment of millions of families across the country who religiously sit in front of their TV screens at 8pm to watch their favourite dramas and drama actors.These dramas have a huge following thus impacting our society in so many different ways.The drama makers should,therefore,be very careful about what they project especially since we live in an Internet age where you can longer take the audience for granted.However,many of the current dramas on air have left us with questions in which makes us audiences gape at them in wonder and think that why didn’t the long list of people associated with the drama thought about these questions.

1- In Rishtay Kuch Adhooray Se inspired by Indian Soap Susral Simar Ka,we are shown that elder sister Gaiti is to be wedded off to Arsal.However,the Nikah is planned in emergency and since Gaiti is not at home,her younger sister Kiran dresses up as a bride and when the Nikah Khawan comes to seek Gaiti’s consent for Nikah with Arsal, Kiran merely nods her head and lo and behold the two are declared husband and wife.So what we get is that calling off the name is not important,when asked for consent to marry,any girl present at the Nikah ceremony can nod her head and become the wife of the guy.He can have multiple wives that way,what fun and what convenience! Perfect chance for those who are in love with someone who’s marrying someone else.Now no one can stop you from becoming his wife.

2- I was naive enough to think that in cases of rape medical examination of both male and female is necessary to prove that rape has been done and that too by the suspected male.Thanks to Mujhe Khuda Pe Yaeen Hai my confusion is clear now.I understand now that physical examination and DNA of male are mere accessories which don’t even merit attention.Even without physical examination,a report could be prepared and anyone could be accused of rape and wait that’s not all.In such circumstances,your self-righteous family including your father whose fake beard oscillates like a pendulum would be perfectly ready to accept you as culprit and would keep on hating you for that also.What a service to criminal and justice this play has done.You listening people and judicial authorities!As an after thought why not to rename this play as ‘Mujhe Common Sense Pe Yaqeen Naheen Hai’.

3- While Mujhe Khuda Pe Yaqeen Hai puts criminal science to shame,Aseer Zadi does the same with Biological Science.In the peer house hold ran by Bari Sarkar Sania Saeed,each Peer marries thrice.The first two wives are nothing more than accessories who do not bear any children to the Peer Sahab and not third wife is the real wife who also becomes the mother of Peer Sahab’s children.Can we know the exact science and methodology adopting which the first two wives are made infertile.If it’s magic or black magic,then I would also like to go to that Aamil Baba.If it’s science,then we have advanced so much in science that we can boast to the west that now Science Books would be easily written by our Drama Writers what to talk of researchers or PHDs.

4- How can I forget another master piece Numm which was to showcase the abhorring practice of Vani and its impact on the lives of the concerned but has since been turned into Fawad Khan sandwiched between two women,ah that’s a novelty,isn’t it people!So this novel show depicts Wali who could not have been more than 10 years old at most being married to Mahjabeen as Mahjabeen’s family murdered Wali’s father and uncle over an ‘honour dispute’ (read Mahjabeen’s relationship with Wali’s uncle).But according to our religion,a child can be wedded only once he/she is of sound judgement.Is a kid of 10 of sound judgement?How could this marriage be legal then?Doesn’t the very base of this drama then fall out and what joy!We would have been spared Kanza Wyne’s screams week after week and women who sigh and watch this drama just to look at Fawad again could have gone and bathed their babies which they were delaying for whole week as they were busy in catching Fawad in drama repeats.

Haseeb Ahmed