poobalan.com

Jun 05 2008

Tamil programmes in RTM2

Posted by poobalan at 7:38 pm under Indian | | View blog reactions

After MIC raised the purported ban of foreign Tamil dramas on RTM2, RTM clarified that no such ban exists. While I disagree with the issue raised by MIC in the cabinet nonetheless, I am interested in the amount of airtime mentioned by RTM. Its reported that the Tamil (not Indian?) programmes constitute 8.63% or 14.5 hours per week. After checking RTM2’s weekly schedule, I discovered the following:

Tamil News - 30 mins x 7 = 3.5 hours

Tamil Movie - 2.5 hours x 2 = 5 hours (but i think one of the slot alternates with other languages)

Tamil Drama - 30 mins x 5 = 2.5 hours

Karuthu Kalam Forum - 60 mins x 2 = 2 hours

Musical shows = 3.5 hours

Islamic talk = 0.5 hours

Total is 17 hours, so I’ll count the movie slot as one only to make it 14.5 hours.

News and musicals each take up 24.13%, movie and drama slots each take up 17.24%, forum is 13.79% and the balance 1.7% is the Islamic talk. The drama is aired at 1.30am on weekdays, while one of the tamil movies is on Sunday late night (Monday early morning). Thus 34.48% of the airtime is after midnight!

News is at prime time (8.30pm) and the other programmes are between 6 and 7pm.

Good news is that Hindi programmes do not seem to take up Tamil programme slots, which was my initial thought. Thus, Indian programmes (Hindi + Tamil) is about 23 hours per week.

I guess 8.63% is fair representation. If include Hindi programmes, it is about 13.69%.

KUALA LUMPUR: Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) has not stopped any plans to stop airing Tamil language programmes on RTM2, said Abdul Rahman Hamid, the director-general for broadcasting.
In a statement yesterday, he said RTM had also not received any directive from the Information Ministry or any other ministry on the matter and would continue to show both local and foreign Tamil programmes and films over RTM2.

“If there is any objection to broadcasting, it is due to the failure of the programme concerned to meet the conditions and quality set by the RTM Quality Committee and the Film Censorship Board that comes under the Home Ministry,” Abdul Rahman said.

He said this to refute a report by a foreign news agency that alleged that the Information Ministry had decided not to air Tamil dramas from India over RTM2.

Instead, he said, RTM always studied the demand for broadcasts in various languages and would increase them, based on suitability.
Abdul Rahman said presently Tamil programmes took up 14.5 hours of airtime over RTM2 which was 8.63 per cent per week in three categories of programmes. He said RTM also aired programmes in other languages, including English, Chinese, Korean, Arabic and Spanish.

Furthermore, he said, there were ongoing efforts to increase programmes by local production companies so they could compete and stand on their own globally. - Bernama

source

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