Current government in Bangladesh shut down another satellite based private television channel last week. Channel-One, a popular television channel commenced its broadcast few years back, when BNP-Jamaat coalition government was in power. During that time, a number of broadcast licenses were issued in favor of several influential members of the ruling coalition. Channel-One is one of those 'fortunate' ones.
Trend of shutting down private television channels began right in 1999 when Awami League was first in power. At that time, the government shut down country's first private television channel named ATV [earlier A-21 TV] and brought false accusation of 'smuggling information via satellite'. Later, the court of Metropolitan Session Judge in Dhaka [Bangladesh] not only dismissed the case, but made strong remarks criticizing the government for bringing such fabricated case against the promoters of country's first private television channel. Though fresh applications were submitted with the subsequent governments with the copy of the court order seeking fresh permission to re-commence the broadcast of country's first private television channel, none of the governments ever considered this as the owners of the channel were not members of any of the political houses in the country.
The tendency of slicing down voice of the media continued during the next government, when BNP-Jamaat coalition won the general election in 2001. Broadcast license of Ekushey Television, the first private owned terrestrial TV channel was cancelled and later the channel was shut down due to court order. Huge number of journalists and employees of the channel turned unemployed overnight.
When military controlled interim government was in power, broadcast of country's only new based channel named CSBC was snatched as the military controlled regime felt uncomfortable at the prolific reporting in the channel.
Before the general election of 2008, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made specific pledge of according total freedom to media. But as soon as it came in power, there has been specific tendency of shutting down television channels owned by political opponents while issuing license to party leaders and affiliates with the aim of establishing monopoly in the electronic media, where no criticism of the government would ever be allowed.
While I am very much against the very 'theme' of shutting down television channels, it is important for me also to mention a gross via lotion of rules by the past BNP-Jamaat government, while issuing broadcast license to its party affiliates.
Ekushey Television's broadcast license was cancelled by the BNP-Jamaat government at the instigation of some of the so-called 'think-tanks' of it. It was alleged that, founder of this television channel got the license in his own name, which he later illegally transferred to a company. If this was the legal ground to cancel the licence of Ekushey TV, how the same government allowed issuing another license to NTV [a channel owned by the political secretary of the then Prime Minister]? It may be mentioned here that the political secretary of the then PM purchased the ownership of Total Entertainment Netrowk [TEN] TV, which was owned by a businessman named Sajjad Ali. This channel came into broadcast just for couple of months before it was closed down by the owners due to severe financial crisis.
If the transferring shares of Ekushey TV was seen as illegal by the BNP-Jamaat government, how the same government issued broadcast license to NTV with the transferred share documents of TEN TV? Subsequently, owner of NTV started a second channel named RTV. It is logically argued by many that, if the very birth of NTV was illegal, there is no legitimacy of RTV and in such case; both the channels should be immediately shut down.
Same thing happens in case of BOISHAKHI TV, a private television channel, share of which was recently transferred to a 'multi-level marketing company' by the owners of the channel.
Most importantly, while Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission sweats to find out irregularities in private television channel, they are ignoring one extremely important point. All of the private television channels need to pay substantial amount of rental to the satellites for using their transponders for broadcast. According to a recent information of Bangladesh Bank, none of the channels ever applied for permission for such transfer of foreign currency to the satellite operators for years. In this case, it is easily anticipated that such huge amount of money is sent to the satellite operators through illegal means, which is an offense under Money Laundering Act.
Another source in National Board of Revenue said, the private television channels are required to pay 15 per cent of the revenue collected from advertisement as Value Added Tax [VAT]. But, NBR claims that, none of the channels ever paid even fraction of the justified amount of VAT to the National Exchequer. If appropriate investigation will be conducted on this area, it will be revealed that, all of the channels are continuing to evade millions of Taka only from this specific sector.
I am not mentioning these irregularities to give any provocation to the government in shutting down more television channels in the country. The reason behind raising these points is to make one clear point that, if the government gets determined in suffocating the voice of any of the private television channels, they can always find ready tools in hand. But, this will not ultimately bring anything good for the very image of the government. With the closure of each of the television channels, hundreds of journalists and employees will turn unemployed. Hopefully, this does not go in favor of the electoral pledge of the current government, which gave specific commitment to the nation of doing everything in resolving the unemployment issue in the country. But, at least in media sector, the government is, contributing in deepening the unemployment crisis instead of resolving it. Hopefully, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will kindly look into this matter, with sympathy and affection for the members of media in Bangladesh.
http://www.weeklyblitz.net/691/shutting-down-private-tv-channels
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