Pakistan Cricket Board planning launch of its own TV channel

In this file photo, Pakistan’s Mohammad Amir celebrates with teammates after taking the wicket of India’s Shikhar Dhawan for 21 during the ICC Champions Trophy final cricket match between India and Pakistan at The Oval in London on June 18, 2017. (Adrian DENNIS/AFP)

• The Pakistan Cricket Board’s channel will broadcast domestic matches, Pakistan Super League and other international tournaments
• Pakistan would be the first Test-playing country in the world to have a dedicated channel run and managed by its cricket board

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Cricket Board is planning to launch its own television channel.
“The channel will broadcast cricket matches, analysis of the sport, documentaries and talk shows for national and international viewers,” said Shakeel Khan, the PCB’s public relations officer. Preparations for the launch have already begun but it will take some time to complete the legal and official formalities before it premieres, he added.
Khan said the PCB has applied to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority for a broadcast license, adding: “We are hopeful of getting the license, as all legal requirements for it have already been fulfilled.”
It has yet to be decided whether other sports will appear on the channel.
“It will be priority of the channel to broadcast domestic cricket matches, including Pakistan Super League live, besides major international cricket tournaments,” said Khan.
Pakistan would be the first Test-playing country in the world to have a dedicated TV channel run and managed by its cricket board.
In August 2016, a Senate Standing Committee on Inter-provincial Coordination endorsed a request by the PCB to have its own television channel and radio station to promote the game. Najam Sethi, who was head of the PCB executive committee at the time and is now chairman of the cricket board, told committee members at the time that the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had given the go-ahead for an cricket TV channel.
The Senate committee also recommended to the PCB that its TV channel should also allocate a share of its schedule to coverage of other sports, especially hockey, which is the national sport of Pakistan.
Imran Naeem Ahmad, a senior sports journalist and analyst, said the cricket board should focus on improving the structure of domestic cricket rather than setting up a television channel.
“It is not the job of the cricket board to run a television channel,” he said. “This would be a bad precedent as every other sports organization would then want to launch its own channel.”
Privately run channels and the state-run Pakistan Television already have sports channels, he added, which have been doing their best to promote the sport in the country.
“There is no need to create another set of bureaucracy in the PCB through a TV channel,” Ahmad said. “The cricket board can only improve the game through a good selection process of the players, and the introduction of merit in the team.”