ASSIGNMEMT ON PEMRA

ELECTRONIC MEDIA

ISBAH GEORGE
BSS-4

WHAT IS PEMRA?

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The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) is asupervisory 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:
License Fees (payment of annual renewal fees).
Subscriber Fees.
Surcharges of late payments.
Advertisements: PEMRA receives 5% of advertisement revenues from the lending right
companies.

PEMRAS ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND

COUNCIL OF COMPLAINTS
PEMRAs 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 RGMs DGMs and
AGMs. 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

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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:
Satellite TV
FM Radio Broadcasting
Multichannel Multipoint Distribution services-MMDs
Cable TV
Mobile TV
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:
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Economic viability

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Technical competence

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Financial capability

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Credibility and Track Record

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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 Authoritys decision.
The PEMRAs 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 PTVs 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:
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Category A: Rs. 1000 per zone.

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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
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Cartoon Network

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Discovery

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Star Movies

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Nickelodeon

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HBO

CURRENT ISSUES

PEMRA faced one of the most important issues regarding Geo Super. The first ever
Pakistani sports channels 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:
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Geo TV

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Geo News

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Geo English

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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-ToHome 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.