Some ten years ago, the only Bangladeshi channel to be seen was BTV. For 32 years Bangladesh Television had the sole monopoly with its terrestrial channel. BTV is its satellite version. The quality of the news was poor, the camera work mundane and monotonous and the whole channel itself, anything but a feast to the eyes.
Then ETV barged in.
Defying the predictions of many financiers and seers of its net loss being over 32 crore in the first year, they broke the record and made a net profit of about 17 crore. They were the trend-setters, and they ripped apart all notions set by BTV and set a higher, and a better, standard of infotainment (information + entertainment) in Bangladesh.
Advance to year 2007, now we find ten channels running through our screens. ETV, NTV, RTV, Channel I, Channel 1, BTV, ATN Bangla, CSB News, etc.
Advance to year 2007, now we find ten channels running through our screens. ETV, NTV, RTV, Channel I, Channel 1, BTV, ATN Bangla, CSB News, etc.
ETV followed the BBC style of news casting, and slowly, as more television channels came into the scene, the news casting hype increased. All Bangladeshi channels excluding CSB News are infotainment.
Ekushey Television (ETV) was the first private terrestrial channel in Bangladesh and South Asia. It started its official transmission on April 14, 2000. During its short transmission period, it gained immense popularity among the viewers through its distinctive news, documentaries, talk shows, dramas, etc. It was closed down in 2002 on August 29, by the government citing that its license was illegal. Since then, the authorities of ETV have fought cases in the High Court and restarted its transmission 29 march 2007 starting its test transmission on 1 December.
On the 19th of July, ’07, our course instructor Dr. Shazadur Rahman Chanchal took us on a visit to the infotain (information + entertainment) channel, the ETV station. There, we were put in the care of Mr. Aminul Islam Khokon, a raving and senior producer at the station. He elaborated the term ‘TEAM’ for us: Together Everyone Achieves More and informed us that ETV employed over 370 people at the moment.
He made the whole station familiar to us and took us to all the floors which the station consisted of. The station is divided into six major parts:
- Programs
- Broadcast Operating and Engineering
- News and Current Affairs (NCA)
- Finance
- Sales and Marketing
- Human Resource and Management
Broadcast Operating News and Current
and Engineering Affairs (NCA)
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Finance Sales and Marketing
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Human Resource
and Management
Each General Management overlooks the on-goings in the whole station.
The Programs department deals takes over putting together the news (works with the News department to use on air), the advertisements (works with the Engineering department, uses footages and visuals and does scanning photos, setting, makeup, etc.) and the commercial programs (works with the Sales department to create advertisements).
It is mainly divided into two sections: (a) Education and Social Affairs, and (b) Drama and Entertainment. Mr. Khokhon treated us to tea and introduced to the ‘Desh Jure’ team.
The Broadcast Operating and Engineering department mainly handles editing, sending and maintaining. There we met with Mr. Tawfiq Rahman, who explained the process of production: acquisition (gathering the program in a medium called software and making the program), post-production (editing, graphics, V/O and finally the final product) and transmission. He informed us about the 16-17 editing panels present, and took us to the Audio Studio.
The News and Current Affairs department (NCA) is the underdogs. They keep the local viewers informed about what is happening in the community and outside. We visited the two studios in ETV and were allowed to watch the execution of the news that day. We met ETV’s Chief Reporter Mr. Shakil, who taught us the importance of good visuals and V/O. He explained how a package is made, what a peg, a link, a sequence and a cue are, how long a cue lasts (15s), and how long a package runs (1:45 s). He further explained how the night before faxes come in from all over the country and the Chief Reporter has to sort through these. An assignment sheet is prepared depending on the peg sheets and these are handed out to various reporters to cover. They in turn finish their coverage and come back to the studio. The top-lines are written, edited and reedited. The Desk News Editor (DNE) gives it a final brush-up and then the news is aired.
The Sales and Marketing department deals will commercial time, advertisements, traffic and scheduling and making sense of the broadcast.
The Finance department is responsible for the advertisements flowing in and other financial matters.
The Human Resource and Management department is responsible for accounting, payroll and programming. Usually there is a further break termed the Administration department, but in ETV, this has been merged with the HRM department.
Moving further, NTV is a Bengali language satellite television channel based in Bangladesh. It started operation in 2003. It was founded by Mosaddeq Ali Falu, a politician and former Member of Parliament from the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party. It is one of the most popular Bengali TV channels in the country. In the anniversary of the channel, the founder expressed interest in creating NTV2 to satisfy the watchers further. The channel runs news, soap shows, educational and politics related programs. He said that with the making of NTV2 the two channels can specialize on particular sort of programs thus increasing standard of Bangladeshi shows.
CSB (Chrono Satellite Broadcast) News is Bangladesh‘s first complete 24 hour News & Current Affairs Channel. Media Guru has consulted for the complete planning and implementation for the new channel being which has been launched by a leading corporate house of Bangladesh.
As we follow these three channels from their birth and up till now, we find that even though they have improved in the face of the Bangladeshi standards, they are lagging behind in the international standards. BBC, CNN and MSNBC, these channels are trendsetters and have set their own standards and have their own original methods and constructions.
But the Bangladeshi channels have only been the followers of these trends. Not even one has been able to come up with any original ideas or trends of its own. Yes, it may be that the trends are original in Bangladesh, but we can easily compare with foreign channels and see them to be simply rip offs.
This happens to be one of the major weak points of the Bangladeshi media. Another drawback is the lack of Media Studies and opportunities. Due to this, most people involved in the media lack academic backgrounds and thus, lack the depth which is needed for each production.
Now to look at some foreign news channels, we can look at BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, and many more.
Some brief introductions.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GBP£4 billion.
Al Jazeera "The Peninsula", (referring to the Arabic name for the Arabian Peninsula) is a television network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel with the same name, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network of several specialty TV channels.
Cable News Network, commonly known as CNN, is a major cable television network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner.[1][2] It is a division of the Turner Broadcasting System, owned by Time Warner. CNN introduced the idea of 24-hour television news coverage, and celebrated its 25th anniversary on June 1, 2005.
Each of the above three channels have been successful in establishing unique styles and techniques. They have wide coverage and personnel and crew with proper backgrounds who know what they are doing and how they are doing it. They have set standards and records for the rest of the television channels to follow. To be like one of them is probably the toughest challenge there is.
Each of their presentations and news is precise, concise, to the point, valid and well directed to attract the layman’s attention. They have research departments which help them analyze the kind of entertainment and news which certain target audiences seek.
They carefully implement each word and make use of every visual for which no words are needed. They are careful to make their news authentic, yet grabbing to the audience.
These extensive researches and background education helps them to understand the public mind and review each news package and set it to certain standards.
The TV News culture has most definitely grown in Bangladesh. Most channels air news, if not 24 hours, then at hourly intervals. But they, in an effort to be like BBC and CNN, sadly resemble Indian news channels. Indian news channels are of course far advanced than Bangladeshi ones. But, even though the goal should be to be like BBC and CNN, we should grow our own style and manner of reporting and set standards ourselves.