N3RD AL3RT_

You must have, should have read about my visit to CNN in the previous post. Well, we finished off by exchanging cards, no wait, not exchanging, she gave hers. We exited the office in awe, thinking wow, that was damn easy So, while getting down the lift, we stopped on the 3rd floor randomly because of the colorful direction boards and company names. We came across many like Cybertronix, 7 Cube etc, but none were open, so we decided to visit Geo Channel. Half of the whole floor was theirs, nice.

We entered the office, no receptionist. We introduced ourselves to a guy next to the recep. and asked if someone could show us around. He looked puzzled which was understandable considering how many barge in like this - he asked us to talk to a guy sitting behind us. He was the broadcasting Station Head; Mr. Imran Meer. Well, Geo TV is Pakistan’s premiere news and entertainment channel like ARY and local PTV group. He gave a huge smile and said, “So, you guys are students? Want to have a look around?”. We were all wide faced smilie-lookin. He took us to the News station area where they receive feeds from all over the world from other stations and journalists or Routers, AFP, AP etc. The edit all that, translations, voiceovers, etc and give it to the area where its put in line with the anchor talking about all that stuff, the studio where the anchor sits (Hamid Mir). well, just for your information they all use apple Mac’s there, not a single Wondooz based PC for the technical work. Though some employees had 2 pcs, one Mac the other an Intel machine.

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He took us arround the technical department where the technical head told us all about the processing, the advertising list, program list, and how they use a fractal generator for the channel logo. Showed us the processors where final audio-video encoding takes place for it to be beamed. They use 2 satellites. One is UAE gov uplink station Samacom and the other is their own backup system.

He told us about the Geo Group in Pakistan and how it is a huge company comprising of magazines, newspapers and entertainment channels. We asked about the present Pakistan emergency when he really got passionate about the work they do and how they are protesting against it. The news anchor, Hamid Mir wore a black badge on this right arm, and their logo was black-n-white. They were the first one’s to know about the emergency and had a small timer before Musharraf declared the emergency. They even knew about Musharraf’s secret UAE visit to meet Benazeer Bhutto and their collaboration about something. Wow, in my mind I thought I knew a lot about this, when he interrupted my thought saying politicians are very shrewd in showing the right face at the right time, and being someone else in different situations.

Anyway, we concluded by watching the news being recored and edited on the fly by some crazy/talented PCR(Production Control room) guys. We even visited the sets of some tv programs that are shot exclusively for Geo like the kamran Khan show and the other ladies show whose name I forgot.

So, that was the whole visit. I am really tired typing this huge article. If I do remember anything new I will surely post it!

Presently Geo News is on a New Frequency 4154/H/4410 on IS7/10 and is also being broadcast online on www.geo.tv .