The Jang group, Pakistan’s biggest most powerful media house has a new money-making feather in its cap. GEO is a 24-hour news cum entertainment TV channel. In less than two years the channel has captured 85 percent of the satellite audience in Pakistan’s big cities, beating its main ARY. Geo has no license to use the Pakistani government’s airwaves, so programs are produced mostly in Karachi and aired from Media City in Dubai. It has around 950 staff, most of them young and inexperienced but excited and dedicated.
Why was GEO launched?
According to Mr. Shakilur Rahman, the chief executive, because “the time was right. Pakistan was under siege from all the Indian satellite channels. I felt that we had to give our viewers something equally good if not better, so that we could entertain and also preserve our own culture and traditions.”
Geo started out as a news channel, but very soon it added dramas and talk shows. It is watched in many parts of the world, including Saudi Arabia, the US and India.
“It was my idea,” Shakil says. “My consultants warned me against mixing news and entertainment. It’s just not done, they told me, it would be committing suicide. But I listened to my own instincts. I figured that entertainment is where the revenue was. I thought why should we lose out on that? In the process, we would also learn about producing drama. And this decision worked wonders for GEO. Today, we are turning down one million rupees worth of advertising a day, simply because we can’t accommodate more. So very soon you will see a separate entertainment channel on GEO.”
Is he planning an English-language channel to give Muslims a greater voice internationally?
“We simply do not have the resources. Al-Jazeera is launching an English channel, it’s an important step; lets see how they fare.”
Shakil was also innovative in his ideas of joint venturing with Indian artists and production houses. He launched a musical game show with famous Indian presenter Annu Kapoor and equally popular Pakistani Bushra Ansari. He has also launched sitcoms with Indian and Pakistani actors Ashok Saraf and Javed Sheikh. Some have criticized this leaning toward India.
“The Pakistani government feels the boldness of Indian TV violates our cultural norms,” Shakil replies. “We believe that if we can commission programming from India according to our taste, we can overcome this problem.”
GEO’s critic say the channel tries to pack in too much and borrows heavily from popular programs around the world. For instance, GEO’s “50 Minutes” sounds very like America’s “60 Minutes”. Other program formats are familiar from CNN. But perhaps that is the secret ingredient to GEO’s success, in a world of diversity, GEO produces something for everyone.
The GEO name came up during a brainstorming session. But when GEO came to be registered it was discovered that the name was already taken. The problem was solved in a brilliant way. It was explained to the satellite commission that it was GEO from Urdu (meaning live) and there was a slogan that went with it — Jeyo aur jenay do, live and let live — but of course that was only a technicality. GEO is really about geopolitics and worldwide entertainment.