Minister for Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Friday informed the National Assembly that on the directive of the President and Prime Minister, Pakistan Television (PTV) is launching a sports channel by December to promote sports activities in the country.
Replying to various questions raised by parliamentarians in Question Hour, she said that launching of PTV sports channel is imperative and dire need of the hour. She said that earning of PTV would also be increased owing to telecasting of sports events like Cricket World Cup, Hockey and Football etc. The minister said that PTV is being digitalised to equip the channel with latest technology and compete with other private channels. The process of digitalisation of PTV would be completed by December 2012, she said.
She said that PTV Global is also being overhauled in order to project true image of the country abroad. Entertainment component of PTV Global would be enhanced to provide more recreation to its viewers, she added. Firdous Awan said that PTV is effectively safeguarding ideological and geographical boarders of the country and efforts are underway to make it mouth piece of people's aspirations that PTV has five major sections including IT wing, marketing and sales wing, news and current affairs wing, programmes wing and engineering wings.
She said that the perception that PTV is only mouth piece of the government has completely changed and now it is giving equal coverage to the opposition parties. She said the opposition also pleads their parties' stance on PTV current affairs programmes. To a supplementary question regarding installation of PTV booster for Fata, the minister said that it is responsibility of the government to provide access to the viewers of far-flung areas. However, she said that the PTV could not installed booster from its own resources as it requires hefty fund. She said that summary would be send to the Prime Minister for allocating fund to set up booster for Fata.