Lahore: Following a statement by leader of the opposition in National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan alleging the government of allocating huge amounts of money to certain anchors and channels in form of advertisements from secret funds as part of the campaign what he called as ‘pre-poll rigging’, Saach.tv has released sensational facts regarding the allocation of government ads to specific channels without following the logic of merits and viewership.
The lists reveal that Dunya News got the highest number of advertisements mounting up to 17% of advertisements (360 million in terms of rupee) despite the fact that it holds only 12% viewership share in the news genre.
Meanwhile, Geo News who holds the highest i.e. 28% viewership share in the news genre has not got any share of governments’ spending in ads.
KTN without a considerable share in viewership was paid 5% advertisements which meant 120 million rupees. City 42, an urban channel in PML-N’s stronghold Lahore, claims 1% share in viewership, but strangely received 11% advertisements (220 million rupees).
Punjab TV, Business Plus, Royal News, and Value TV have no viewership share, but enjoy 5%, 4%, 3%, and 3% share of government advertisement revenue, respectively.
On the other hand, CNBC and SAMAA enjoy 16% viewership share, but gets only 6% advertisement share.