The Role of PEMRA in the Pakistan Media Landscape.

As an assignment, we were randomly given topics and were told to analyse and understand how that component basically fits into Pakistan's Media Landscape. Our group was supposed to research about the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority and the following were our findings. 

WHAT IS PEMRA?

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) is a supervisory body which was established by Pakistan on March 1, 2002. It has been established under the PEMRA ordinance 2002 to facilitate and regulate electronic media. It works on improving the standards of information, education and entertainment and to provide the people of Pakistan with large base of choices to choose from including news, current affairs, art and culture, science and technology, etc. It is responsible for facilitating and governing the establishment and operation of all private broadcast media and distribution services in Pakistan, established for international, national, provincial, district and local or special target audiences.

It aims at facilitating the devolution of responsibility and power to the grass roots by improving the access of the people to mass media at the local and community level and also ensuring accountability, transparency and good governance by the optimizing the free flow of information. Electronic media which was once in shackles of government control is absolutely free paralleled with any other democratic country and is now privatized and for this purpose PEMRA was established to give out licenses and to keep a check whether the channels are working according to their licenses or not. A great number of television channels and radio stations have been allowed in the country to provide people with diversified choices and with greater access to mass media. Everyone, even those who previously had no access to media, is presently as much abreast with the current information as any person living in a highly urbanized city and this is due to massive growth of electronic media. PEMRA makes sure that no irrelevant content is being broadcasted and is in accordance with general public which may require to censorship few programmes.

Financially PEMRA is independent of government. They cover their finances from these our sources:

1.      License Fees (payment of annual renewal fees).

2.      Subscriber Fees.

3.      Surcharges of late payments.

4.      Advertisements:  PEMRA receives 5% of advertisement revenues from the lending right companies.

PEMRA’S ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND COUNCIL OF COMPLAINTS

PEMRA’s organizational structure consists of Chairperson (currently, Mr. Mushtaq Malik), who is in the Head office, Islamabad. The chairperson is appointed by the prime minister directly. Below chairperson are the Secretary to authority, Executive member/ Director General and GM (coordination). Below the executive member are RGM’s DGM’s and AGM’s. After the head office there are several regional offices, in the provincial capitals and several sub offices, where required.

PEMRA also has council of complaints working independently in Islamabad, Provincial capitals and other places where ever required. These regional offices are fully competent to take actions, as provided in the Ordinance and rules made there under. These councils will assist Authority in carrying out the objectives and purposes of the PEMRA ordinance 2002. Each council consists of a commissioner and five members being citizens of prominence and atleast one of them is a woman. The commissioners and members are all required to take active part in all the meetings which will be held atleast once a month and the intervening period between the two meetings cannot be more than 40 days. The commissioner convenes the meetings. The Authority may also direct the councils to hold a meeting to discuss a specific agenda proposed by the Authority. The meetings are generally held in the regional offices. The members of the council should be informed well beforehand about the meeting. The decisions are taken by the majority of their members and the records of the meetings are properly maintained. Any person from the general public who finds any program as offensive is eligible to place his complain before the Council or any authorized officer (who may place it before the Council) for considerations and further proceedings. These councils may recommend the authority appropriate action of censure or fines to the broadcasting companies. The council has the authority to monitor broadcast stations at any moment as long as the Authority is informed about the feedback and public response to contents, quality and impact of programmes and advertisements broadcast or distributed. These complains are placed in a proper hearing and all the parties have the right to defend their case.

LICENSING

No company can broadcast without obtaining a license from the authority which is subject to terms and conditions as given in the Ordinance, the rules or as provided by the Authority itself.  The licenses are provided to endeavor to provide a suitable proportion of programmes of indigenous origin and to maintain general standards of transmitting programmes and advertisements. It is to ensure that the licensee provides a diversified mixture of programmes on information, education, entertainment, culture, religion, public service and other areas of public interest specified by the Government or the Authority in the manner indicated by the Government and duration of such mandatory broadcast programmes should not increase 10% of the total duration of broadcast by a station in 24 hours, unless otherwise stated. The licenses are given out to ensure that no such is programme or advertisement is broadcasted which is detrimental to the sovereignty, integrity, ideology of Pakistan and her relations with the foreign states, public order or anything which is offensive to anyone in anyway and it the programmes should promote national dignity and character and should respect all the ethnic groups in Pakistan. For advertising agencies, they should not broadcast more than 8 minutes of ads in one hour ensuring regular programmed of reasonable duration between the successive advertisement breaks. Also, the advertisements should not be very noisy. The licenses are issued to make sure that the licensee does not broadcast, transmit or re-transmit or relay pornographic or obscene contents of any type. The Authority issues guidelines regarding the minimum Pakistani content in the programmes to be broadcasted by the licensee. Any company which is registered is eligible to apply for a license. PEMRA gives out licenses for the following:

1.      Satellite TV

2.      FM Radio Broadcasting

3.      Multichannel Multipoint Distribution services-MMDs

4.      Cable TV

5.      Mobile TV

6.      Internet Protocol TV

All the licenses have a maturity period (duration of license) after which they need to be renewed. For the renewal the Authority should be involved at least six months earlier to the extinction time. The license would be extended on the basis of satisfactory performance and the Authority can cancel the license, if need be.

SATELLITE TV:

Satellite television is provision of television services through satellite. The television channel is received anywhere in the world where the beam of the satellite is received. Licenses are issued to those companies which are registered with SECP. PEMRA receive the information about the board of directors. Agencies confirm the information so as to ensure that none of them has any criminal records. License is issued for 15 years, after which it should be renewed and application processing fee is Rs. 200,000/-. 10% of the licensing fee is the security deposit and is refundable after on year on satisfactory performance. However, PEMRA has now stopped issuing satellite TV licenses due to saturated market position and limited channel carrying capacity of distribution networks. Licensing fee depends on the type of channel e.g. sports, entertainment, etc.

FM RADIO BROADCASTING:

This uses frequency modulation of radio waves to provide high quality sound. FM broadcast band is 88-108 MHz and the area of coverage is approximately 50 Km. licenses are issued through open bidding process where the license is given to the highest bidder. The duration of license after which it requires renewal is 10 years. Application processing fee for small cities is Rs. 10,000/- and for big cities it is Rs. 25,000/-. Security deposit is 10% of the licensing fee as per performance.

MULTICHANNEL MULTIPOINT DISTRIBUTING SERVICES:

MMDs, also known as wireless cable, a wireless telecommunication technology, have a signal range of 40-50 Km. They use microwave frequencies. Reception of these signals is only possible with a special rooftop microwave antenna and a set-top box for the television receiving the signals. The duration of the license is 10 years after which they should renewed and the application processing fee is Rs. 20,000. Security deposit is again 10% of the licensing fee.

CABLE TV:

This receives broadcast and pre-recorded signals from different channels and distributes them to subscribers through a cable network. At first, the cable operators were given licenses directly but now the Authority has decided that in future the cable TV licenses will also be given out through open bidding processes. All the licenses are subject to terms and conditions as per the Ordinance. The license is also given out on the basis of the desired category of the license. Applications for a grant of license are shortlisted according to:

1.      Economic viability

2.      Technical competence

3.      Financial capability

4.      Credibility and Track Record

5.      Extent of Pakistani Share in ownership

Each application should fulfill all terms and conditions as the Authority has the full right to reject any application and should be in public interest. After this the Authority may decide on giving the license through an open bidding process. The Authority has the full power to revise and update, from time to time, the licensing and renewal fee, etc. The duration of the license is 5 years after it is subject to the renewal process (renewal fee is different for different channels). The application process fee is Rs. 5000/-. General licensing conditions include:

·         The applicant should pay the licensing fee (differs from channel to channel) before the issuance of the license.

·         Failure of payment of licensing fee leads to surcharge of 5%of the licensing fee which can go as high as 15% and may result in the cancellation of the license.

·         They are required to pay the 5% of the airing and distributing advertising revenues. The cable operators are allowed to show only 8 minutes of advertisements in one hour, out of which they can only show 10% of the foreign content.

·         The license can be withdrawn and cancelled if it is failed to put into operation within one year of issuance.

·         The licenses are only issued to the eligible applicants who are residents of Pakistan and do not work under the laws of any foreign government.

·         The license is only valid for specific area coverage as specified in the application form and terms of license.

·         The licensee is only allowed to charge the subscriber; the subscription approved by the Authority and is not allowed to discriminate among the subscribers.

·         The license should be prominently displayed at the business premises and Authority representatives or the council members should have the full right of inspection anytime.

·         If cable operator is subject to frequent complains from the subscribers, the cable operator maybe called to council to explain reason thereof and it may or may not lead to cancellation of the license depending solely on the Authority’s decision.

The PEMRA’s job is to give out licenses, it is no where concerned with what channel is supposed to be shown on what number. That depends on the cable operator and the public demand. However, the first ten channels should be the PTV’s channels. Many companies can manipulate the cable operators to keep their channels on the top where as it may also involve political motives. The cable operator is not allowed to use 5 channels for the movies. Also, the cable operator is not allowed to show any of the Indian channels, yet they still are and this is one of the major concerns of PEMRA. PEMRA is constantly fining the cable operators and it might also lead to the cancellation of license.

MOBILE TV:

Under the agreement with Mobile Network Operator (MNO), the licensee is required to provide content through video streaming to the end users of the Mobile Network Operator. The duration of the license is initially one year but can be extended to four years upon satisfactory performance. The application processing fee is Rs. 20,000/- and the security deposit is 10% of the licensing fee. Licensing fee for mobile TV is Rs. 1.5 million and annual renewal fee is Rs. 0.3 million.

INTERENET PROTOCOL TV:

This is a new method of delivering and viewing television programmes via an IP network and high speed broad band access technology. It combines three mediums into one; internet, television and phone. IP television license can be obtained by applying through can application form for which the application processing fee is Rs. 20,000/-. The security deposit is 10% of the licensing fee. Licensing fee depends on the categories:

1.      Category A: Rs. 1000 per zone.

2.      Category B: Rs. 500 per zone.

The annual renewal fee is 30% of the licensing fee plus 5% of the AGR.

LANDING RIGHTS

When broadcasting companies abroad want to broadcast in Pakistan, they require special permission (landing rights) from PEMRA for distributing on distribution service networks. The application procedure is same via application form and the application processing fee is Rs. 200,000. The license is valid upto 5 years after which it is subject to regular renewal process. Few companies which have landing rights issued in Pakistan include:

1.      Cartoon Network

2.      Discovery

3.      Star Movies

4.      Nickelodeon

5.      HBO

CURRENT ISSUES

PEMRA faced one of the most important issues regarding Geo Super. The first ever Pakistani sports channel’s transmission was stopped. At first, there was no cross media ownership, meaning print media owner can not own any company of electronic media. However, the law was abolished and cross media ownership is not allowed provided that every company who wants to avail this should purchase four licenses. All news papers too licenses for their channels and due to this, electronic media owners could not survive. Now Geo took licenses for following four channels:

1.      Geo TV

2.      Geo News

3.      Geo English

4.      AAG

Geo did not mention Geo Super anywhere while taking licenses. Geo only had landing rights and could broadcast from Dubai only meaning it was up-linking its transmission from Dubai and could distribute in Pakistan through M/S Birds Pvt. Ltd, a local company. Also, it never gave 5% of it advertising share to PEMRA as it registered itself with some other company which was not registered with PEMRA only to escape from paying the advertisement share. Geo Super also stopped its transmission itself and launched a baseless media campaign against PEMRA alleging for banning its transmission which is incorrect and to blackmail PEMRA, so that they do not have to give 5% of their advertisement revenues. Also, under the Landing Rights Permission, no channel has the right to cover any live event occurred in Pakistan unless they have special Temporary Up-linking Permission to cover any live event occurring here. Geo violated the laws and broadcasted all the matches on AAG.

FUTURE OF PEMRA

PEMRA aims to digitalize the whole cable system. It will also bring its new Direct-To-Home Television where the subscribers will receive satellite channels beamed through various satellites and the whole system would be wireless. It is the most widespread reception method through an intermediary in the form of a cable operator. This will provide better quality coverage to the subscribers. The subscribers receive signals directly from geo-stationary satellites. There are widespread complains of piracy by local cable operators and this service would eliminate this problem to a large extent. The licensing criterion for this service is still under process and will be soon decided by the Authority