There may never be a Miss Pakistan but we may well have “Ms TV Newsreader” one of these days. (Since many or perhaps most of them are married, Ms will replace Miss.)
When Pakistan Television was the only game in town, female newsreaders were not worth the second look. Many were of middle age, one even a grandmother, or perhaps even a great grandmother! No wonder, many viewers would prefer to listen to Khabarnama (News), rather than watch it, as if news was coming from the radio.
PTV did not change its criterion for selecting female newsreaders even after private news channels came on air. The conspiracy theory was that the new channels were hiring pretty faces, while asking PTV not to give them competition. When inter-channel competition intensified, PTV too entered the fray, though it is still playing the second fiddle.
Far away, BBC is also not doing better than PTV. It cares more for presumed preference of world audience than mundane things like beauty (though viewers may think otherwise). Many newsreaders are of Asian or African origin, while many are past their youth. However, its rival in UK, Sky News, prefers youth and beauty, whether white, black or something in-between.
Voting Ms TV Newsreader may not be chosen in the normal way. No parades in swimsuits, not even in sleeveless shirts. No performances on stage or on beaches. And no panel of judges.
In the first phase, every news channel will have an internal competition. It will allot code numbers to all of its female newsreaders and ask viewers to vote for their favorites. Before every commercial break in a main news bulletin, a promotional video clip may be shown of a newsreader, with her code number. Since it is not proper in our culture to praise oneself, a male voiceover may do promotion for her. The viewers will vote through text messaging (erroneously called SMS), by simply giving a newsreader’s code number and sending it to a given phone number. The voting may continue for one, two or more weeks, as long as votes continue to come. At the end, the channel may declare the newsreader getting the maximum votes as its own Ms Newsreader.
In the second phase, all channel champions will compete among themselves. Every news channel will show promotional video clips of all of them for agreed number of times during news bulletins in a day. The channel of a champion will not be mentioned in the video to avoid giving publicity to rivals.
The viewers may judge several aspects: pronunciation, delivery, ability to ask intelligent and pertinent questions while talking to experts, poise, appearance, dress, makeup and, of course, beauty (whatever is visible on the screen). Voting will again be through text messages.
After voting is over, all channels will announce the name of the winner, with five runners-up in order of votes. Short video clips of winners may be shown, thanking their voters.
Who will benefit?
a) News channels as well as mobile phone companies will share the huge revenue from text messages.
b) The channels having a newsreader in the top six will boast about it ad nauseum. The winner and runners-up will get higher salary, while rival channels may offer them still better packages. There will be recognition and fame, even modeling offers.
c) The standards for selection of female newsreaders will improve in general, in view of competitions in future.
If women take the lead, can men be left behind? A competition for Mr Newsreader may soon follow.
In due course, there may be a demand for choosing the best anchors, male as well as female. In their case, brain will count much more than beauty.
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