Television
With a combination of Afghan news and political programs, original reality TV shows, Bollywood movies and American programs like "24", ARIA TV is the first exclusive channel for children and teenagers, while Tolo TV is Afghanistan's most watched station. Saad Mohseni, chairman of Tolo's parent company, MOBY Group, said Moby's revenues are in the $20 million range and the media company operates at a profit. Lemar TV, which broadcasts in Pashto language, is sister channel of Tolo.
State-owned Afghanistan National Television relaunched in 2002 after being shut down in 1996 by the Taliban. Four cable stations appeared after the overthrow of the Taliban, carrying Indian and American programs, though cable was banned in 2003 by the Afghan Supreme Court on moral grounds. In 2006, at least 7 television stations were operating in the country, of which 1 was government run in addition to six regional stations. Radio Television Afghanistan was the most powerful broadcast outlet. Satellite and cable television ownership is growing however; Al Jazeera widely seen as a leading source of uncensored information.
The Afghan government had planned to make the Bakhtar news agency and Radio Television Afghanistan independent of government control in 2004 before elections. It was reported in 2012 that there are as many as 76 television channels in the country. Many global news channels have local bureau's in Kabul, including: CNN, BBC, Sky News and Aljazeera.
Read more about this topic: Afghan Media
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
“Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy.... In other countries, the business of laughing is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)