The Day Before DAWN

DAWN News has pulled a compete 180 and shifted their medium of communication from English to Urdu, in order to appeal to a wider audience. The reason cited for this shift is primarily financial difficulty. Once DAWN News' only local competitor was Express 24/7 now it competes with local giants like GEO, Duniya, Aaj and Express News.

Dawn news has a good mix of shows ranging from News, lifestyle, current affairs, documentaries and sports. The larger set of the programming as just been migrated from the English Language to the Urdu medium.

While DAWN news was in its English medium the programming was targeted at the slightly upmarket crowd as opposed to the masses. The recent U-turn by DAWN News has seen the advent of content that is particularly targeted at the masses such as Syasi Kalian hosted by Uncle Sargam, a puppet character who was popular during the 80's and the 90's.

Turning into something of a 'me-too' channel has begun a program with Wasut Ullah Khan by the name of Bolna Zaroor Hai. Following the format of a dial-in political talk show, DAWN is attempting to emulate the success of anchors like Faisal Qureshi and Talat Hussain.

DAWN has attempted to hold on to its somewhat loyal viewers by simply changing the language of its most popular shows such as A Taste of Fusion, No Reservations and The First Blast.

Looking at the News content of DAWN one can safely say that DAWN is doing nothing new. Primary coverage is dedicated to the politics of the country and other pressing issues like the recent cyclone Phet and the Hunza Lake catastrophe. DAWN News may be restricted by the fact that it does not have the numbers of journalists on its payroll as compared to its competitors like GEO or Samaa. Live coverage of events seem to only come from the urban metros where as the competition seem very able to cover even the smaller cities live.

Overall, DAWN News has not been able to maintain much consistency over the course of it's life. They have taken a bold step in moving away from their comfort zone of the English language and the attempt to appeal to a wider audience. As time progresses, DAWN News will have to evolve some innovative programming in order to stand out from the crowd they seem to have placed themselves in. The DAWN name can only take the channel so far, the product needs to be made much better.

Regards,

Zubair Siddiqui

http://karachifoodie.blogspot.com/