MEDIA: Asia’s Only Public Broadcaster Struggles to Stay Alive

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Nov 20 2002 (IPS) - Seven years after the launch of Asia’s only public broadcaster, the pioneering station is struggling to stay alive because corporate sponsors shy away from support, pushing it to become increasingly dependent on U.N. agencies and other supporters.

“It’s a struggle to keep this station going,” said Hilmy Ahamed, the managing director of Young Asia Television (YATV), launched in Colombo by Worldview International Foundation, a Norwegian-backed non-government organisation.

“We want to be a leader in social communications but we lack the support of the private sector which is essential for any media organisation,” he says

Today, YATV, which uses MTV-like presentation of news and issues surrounding the news, reaches up to 40 million people in 22 countries in Asia and Europe. Its programmes range from human rights, development, the needs of young people and conservation.

It hopes to expand its reach to 63 countries including Africa and the Americas, targeting particularly young people.

But the challenges of maintaining development-oriented programmes and attracting commercial supporters for material that is usually seen as commercially unviable are forcing YATV to take a second look at its current approach.

This is why, Ahamed says, “our new strategy is to deal with U.N. agencies and be their media campaign partner”.

Sharmini Chanmugam, YATV’s editor-in-chief, says that its broadcasting of a programme on the right to development, supported by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia-Pacific, and a locally-backed programme on human rights education are part of this new approach.

The locally backed programme is supported by the Sri-Lankan based Institute of Human Rights and has a 26-episode series of five-minute videos discussing torture, HIV-AIDS, sexual orientation and internally displaced people.

One story, for instance, relates how people living in a residential area outside Colombo were informed that a major highway was running through their properties — five years after the project began.

“These people have been kept in the dark. That is the problem. The right to information is a basic fundamental right,” Lalanath de Silva, human rights advocate, said in this series.

Both series on rights are being offered free to any broadcaster and would be launched on Dec 10, international human rights day.

Like any public broadcaster, YATV focuses on non-sensational news, providing an alternate approach to news and highlights social injustice.

“That’s the problem. Our programmes are good and well received by everyone including the corporate sector. But when it comes to financial support, the corporates shy away because we deal with controversy. Also advertising on these programmes won’t directly help to sell products,” she said.

Chanmugam, who had a long stint at national television broadcaster Rupavahini before joining YATV at its inception, however firmly believes there is a space for public broadcasters like her station.

“There should be laws tied to licences given to private broadcasters by governments to offer space to public and social broadcasts. People need to know their rights and about social injustice. It is a public interest issue,” she explained.

YATV does not have its own channel and has to negotiate with state and private broadcasters across Asia for space on their channels. In Colombo, its programmes are run on Rupavahini and TNL, a private station with similar contracts in the rest of the world.

YATV was launched in 1995 at a time when the Internet and satellite television began breaking down conventional media barriers.

Programmes like ‘YA Tribe and Nature Calls’ have young pony-tailed men clad in jeans and T-shirts discussing music festivals and dramas across the world. ‘Space to Let’ focuses on marginalised women and those who are helping to improve their lives.

“We also want to highlight Asians who are doing things, who are influencing society. We don’t only talk about problems. We like to also find possible solutions and present these,” Chanmugam said.

Some 40 stringers across Asia and a full-time staff of producers and camera crews churn out stories on issues including the rights of women, education and the peace process in Sri Lanka to end its 19-year ethnic conflict, which occupies a key place in its current coverage.

“We have interviewed personalities like S P Tamil Chelvan, head of the Tamil rebels’ political wing, long before the peace process began and the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp) or CNN (Cable News Network) came into the picture,” says Ahamed.

He adds that the station’s two peace programmes ‘Sathi’ and ‘Vilippu’ (meaning ‘awakening’ in the Sinhala and Tamil languages respectively) have an audience even abroad.

YATV is using a London broadcaster to transmit its programmes to 35,000 households of Tamils of Sri Lankan origin in Europe.

The station’s other content is not far off – in stimulating public debate, raising concerns and demanding action.

HIV-AIDS forms a prominent part of YATV coverage, challenging misconceptions, creating awareness on safe sex and — for instance — interviewing a group of school children in Nepal and Bangladesh on the importance of introducing sex education in the school curriculum.

Chanmugam said their focus would be the issues that the mainstream media does not sufficiently cover or completely ignores. The station produced only English-language programmes at the beginning but gradually began local-language programmes as corporate sponsorship began drying up. The strategy has paid off to some extent.

“We are reaching larger audiences through local language programmes,” she said.

Ahamed hopes that the fact that YATV is probably the only one of its kind should attract many supporters. But he concedes, “The biggest problem however is that we are in the non-government world and thus can’t attract corporate advertising.”

MEDIA: Asia’s Only Public Broadcaster Struggles to Stay Alive

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Nov 19 2002 (IPS) - Seven years after the launch of Asia’s only public broadcaster, the pioneering station is struggling to stay alive because corporate sponsors shy away from support, pushing it to become increasingly dependent on U.N. agencies and other supporters.
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