Let
us go back a couple of months when Geo News publicly criticized the Pakistan
army during the Hamid Mir assassination attempt case. Pakistani TV Audience and
masses voiced their severe displeasure at GEO Network’s antics over libel
towards Pakistan Army and ISI and recommended it should be banned. As per the ground realities, GEO Network faced
a mass boycott by majority of Pakistani Public refusing to further tune into
Geo. Even Geo itself cried to the officials regarding Cable TV Distributors all
over Pakistan not airing their channel transmission. However, the viewership ratings for the GEO
Network (both Geo News and Geo Entertainment) continued their stable trend
astonishingly without any difference or losing any eyeballs!
Interestingly,
soon after this, Geo News was banned intermittently; it was made sure by
authorities that Geo News was not aired by any cable provider in Pakistan. But
again, the ratings received through People Meters System under the name of
TeleControl ran under a company, MediaLogics showed that Geo Network’s ratings had
no effect whatsoever of the
nationwide blanket ban and it was still ranked as the most watched channel in
Pakistan.
Perplexed
by this, I looked back even further and remembered the backlash Geo TV received
from local advertisers and media industry because of the highly negative
perception among the target audiences regarding Geo’s anti-Armed Forced
behavior. If the ratings as per the Medialogic
reports were “as high as the previous months” for Geo News programming then it
leads to believe only either of the TWO possibilities:
Possibility A: The
rating system technology, which currently is being taken as the authentic
measure of media viewership in Pakistan, is seriously flawed and generating highly
inaccurate results – hence misdirecting the advertisers and promoters.
Possibility B: Geo Network and Mir Shakeel ur Rahman have
once again managed to use their corrupt ways and lobby-pressures to keep the
ratings in their favor by bribing and influencing the concerned officials to
tilt the actual ratings at Geo’s side.
If
the latter turns out to be true, it raises some serious questions about the
integrity of all those involved as well as another check in Geo Network’s book
of dark deeds. This also raises a major concern for the Advertising community
in Pakistan as the knowledge they are basing their campaigns that are worth
Millions of Rupees can end up in smoke due to these flawed system/ratings!
