You must have have read about my visit to CNN in the previous post where me and an old friend of mine visited the Middle East CNN office. We finished off by exchanging cards, not exchanging, she gave hers. We exited the office thinking how lucky we were to see an inside of a CNN office. While getting down the lift, we stopped on the 3rd floor because of the colorful direction boards and company names. We came across companies like Cybertronix, 7 Cube etc, but none were open, so in the spur of the moment we decided to visit Geo TV (Urdu News Channel from Pakistan). Half of the whole 3rd floor was given to them.
We entered the office, no receptionist. We introduced ourselves to a person sitting next to the reception and asked if someone could show us around. He looked puzzled which was understandable considering not many barge in like this - he asked us to talk to a guy sitting behind us. He was the broadcasting Station Head; Mr. Imran M. Well, Geo TV is Pakistan's premiere news and entertainment channel like ARY and local PTV group. He gave a huge smile and said, "So, you guys are students? Want to have a look around?". We had huge grins on our faces. He took us to the News station area where they receive feeds from all over the world from other stations and journalists or Routers, AFP, AP etc. The edit all that, translations, voice overs, etc and give it to the area where its put in line with the anchor talking about specific news pieces, the studio where the anchor sits (for example, while we were there it was Hamid Mir). well, just for your information they all use Apple Mac computers for the technical work.
He took us around the technical department where the technical head told us all about the processing, the advertising list, program list, and how they use a fractal generator for the channel logo. Showed us the processors where final audio-video encoding takes place for it to be beamed to the satellites (They use 2). One of them is a UAE government up-link station, Samacom and the other system is their own backup.
He told us about the Geo Group in Pakistan and how it is a huge company comprising of magazines, newspapers and entertainment channels. We asked about the present Pakistan emergency when he really got passionate about the work they do and how they are protesting against it. The news anchor, Hamid Mir wore a black badge on this right arm, and their logo was black-and-white. They were the first one's to know about the emergency and had a small timer before Musharraf declared the emergency. They even knew about Musharraf's secret UAE visit to meet Benazeer Bhutto and their collaboration about something. Wow, in my mind I thought I knew a lot about this, when he interrupted my thought saying politicians are very shrewd in showing the right face at the right time, and being someone else in different situations.
Anyway, we concluded by watching the news being recorded and edited on the fly by some crazily talented PCR (Production Control Room) guys. We even visited the sets of some TV programs that are shot exclusively for Geo TV like the Kamran Khan Show.
As an update, just 4 days after our visit, the Geo TV station was closed down due to the emergency declared in Pakistan. It was a front page news and many of the employees we met on that day were seen protesting the closure. Read more about it on :
Pakistan State of Emergency, 2007
Musharraf Imposes Emergency Rule
Wiki on GeoTV Ban
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