Shalimar Television Network
Shalimar Television Network (STN) was the first semi governmental television channel of Pakistan, the first to break up the monopoly of state-owned Pakistan Television (PTV). STN started its broadcast in 1990 with the name of People's Television Network (PTN) under the umbrella of Shalimar Recording Company from Islamabad. Later on, its transmissions were started from Karachi, Lahore and by the mid-1990s, it was available in the whole country at terrestrial beam. In 1991, the name of PTN was changed to STN (Shalimar TV Network) [1]
History
PTN under settlements with CNN International of USA and British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC of UK started rebroadcast of the programming of CNN International channel and BBC World. In the same year, PTN in an agreement with Interflow (a private company) started a time slot by the name of , Network Television Marketing (NTM) which came as a breath of fresh air after General Zia-ul-Haq's military dictatorship era of the 1980s; with its unique and entertainment-filled programming, it gave tough competition to PTV at prime time evening TV viewing time.[1]
STN-As Channel-3
In 1999, NTM had to quit the airwaves because of the financial crunch. Right after this, STN also ended the re-broadcast programs of CNN Intentional, BBC World and DW. In 1999, under a settlement with PTV Network, STN became "Channel-3".[1] A Satellite beam was also arranged for STN/Channel-3 and it started its broadcast from PTV Academy. Each rebroadcast station of STN on terrestrial airwaves was connected to the satellite beam of STN/Channel. Channel-3 started its regular transmission in 2000 as an all-purpose channel. Slots of 'Prime Entertainment' and 'Sunday TV' were quite popular among the audience as the quality of entertainment programming were quite good.
Replacement of STN by ATV
In 2005, STN/Channel-3 went off the air and the parent company Shalimar Recording and Broadcasting Company signed an agreement with Sports Star International to start the first ever semi-private channel of Pakistan ATV (Pakistan) channel, the collaboration stayed intact till 2018. From 2018-2020, ATV ran solely under SRBC solely as a semi-government TV Channel. In 2020, it again got a partner from private sector. [2]
References
- ^ a b c https://div46amplifier.com/2015/06/15/evolution-of-television-in-pakistan/, 'Evolution of Television in Pakistan', The Amplifier Magazine, Published 15 June 2015, Retrieved 10 March 2017
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20111025204843/http://srbc.com.pk/srbc_in_brief.asp#stn, Article on ATV (Pakistan), formerly known as Shalimar Television Network, Retrieved 10 March 2017
External links
- http://atv.com.pk/, ATV (Pakistan) official website