Call for Community TV in Bangladesh

Call for Community TV

by SHAFIQ RAHMAN of  PROBE NEWS MAGAZINE


And now there is a demand for Community Television. Bangladesh NGO's Network for Radio and Communications (BNNRC), on May 22 this year, had submitted a letter to the Information Minister at the time, Abul Kalam Azad, calling for a community television policy.

AHM Bazlur Rahman, the executive head of BNNRC, has said that they have taken initiative to form a
consultation team in this regard. In the meantime, the 22 community radio stations now operating in the country are airing 100 hours of programmes per day. Bazlur Rahman says this indicates just how effective community television will be in the field.

He says, "People would scoff at us when  we spoke of community radio, saying it would not be possible to run radio stations at a rural level for any significant length of time. But we have proved them wrong and community radio is popular and running successfully."

"Now is the time to look towards community TV," he says. "Mainstream TV is hostage to the corporate world and so there is need for television that addresses the needs and interests of the deprived, down-trodden people of the country."

He continues, "The number of TV stations in the country is not all that much considering a burgeoning
population of 150 million. And community television is very different from mainstream TV where the voice of
the rural people is lost in the clamour of national and international news. Maybe once a day they telecast district news, that too in a perfunctory manner. Community TV is needed at the grassroots."

He says that this television will not be competition for mainstream TV, but complementary. The first community television of the region was started in 2007 in Lumbini, Nepal. It was called Lumbini Television.
It telecasts programmes of development, education, health, information and entertainment. Bangladesh too can have similarly sussessful community TV stations all over the country, Bazlur Rahman says.