Maldives’ First Privately Owned TV Station Starts Broadcasts

Text of report by Maldives privately-owned newspaper Haveeru Daily website on 8 June

The first privately owned TV station in Maldives, “Future Television”, began broadcasting on Saturday [7 June].

Media Ring’s “Future Television” can be seen on B-Net’s Channel 4 and began broadcasting at 8 p.m. yesterday. The managing director of the company, Mohamed Fayaz (JB), said that the response from the public had been very positive.

“Initially we will be showing Dhivehi songs and films,” he said. “But since local products are very limited we are also showing Hindi productions.”

He said that the first local movie that they had shown on the channel was the popular movie “Fathis Handhuvaru”, made in the 1990s.

“A lot of people called us and commented that they had not seen the movie in so high detail and in such good quality before,” JB said. “We have received requests for many more movies also.”

JB said that at the start they will be broadcasting from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and after a break will continue to broadcast from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.

“At night we will be showing movies and songs,” he said. “And in the mornings there will be children’s programs as well. We are trying to emulate the Hindi channel Star Plus’s style mostly.”

The Information Ministry had given permission to begin a TV channel under the name of “Future Television” last Wednesday.

JB said that they were trying to broadcast to islands near Male via the channel digital broadcasting terrestrial And that they had begun sending their test signal now. He said they were also trying to get the licence to broadcast to mobile phones and car TV sets via digital broadcasting handsets.

Originally published by Haveeru Daily website, Male, in English 8 Jun 08.

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