DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSITION

Continued from vol 02, issue 03

Fazle Lohani

Seeing the boom in the interest and viewership of the program, the show “Maati O Maanush” was rescheduled for 8 PM. A stroke of bad luck ended Shykh Seraj's role as presenter for “Maati O Maanush”. The show kept going, but the viewership kept dropping week by week, as a result of which it was brought back to its original 6 P.M. timeslot. Besides the employees of Bangladesh Television, there were other important personalities who were also involved and are known for the strength in their influence. These people didn't exactly work for the television, but they have given up a lot of things in life to make BTV successful.  

Because of this, Fazle Lohani himself did the program twice. The people who worked with him all presented later on, in many programs with different names. Abdullah Abu Sayed is one of the presenters who had the most exposure in TV due to the many programs he presented. He would constantly try to ruin the reputations of his own created shows and his own image. While we were still fumbling with an explanation for this, he created a variety show using his intelligence called “Shoptoborna”, which is still considered Bangladesh Television's milestone when it comes to variety shows.

Mostofa Monowar

Teamwork is the secret to the success of any television program. The way that outsiders had involved themselves with television, television employees also utilized all their time and effort into improving the quality of television. During the Pakistani reign, there were a lot of changes made to television, which became evident to viewers as soon as Pakistani television service 1st aired. Now, the audience tunes in with the words of country and soil – Bangladesh Television. It's true that the audience wants to hear about their country and everything in it, but still, the television employee's attitudes changed. Why the change? That, unfortunately, will forever remain a mystery to us all.

After our liberation, on December 21st 1971, people saw the words “Bangladesh Television Corporation” when they tuned in. During this time, a new signature tune was created by Mostofa Monowar based on the song “Dhonodhanne Pushpe Bhora”. This tune was used before the start of any major program. After the liberation, “Amar Shonar Bangla” was played when all programs ended. Later on, however, in 1975, there was a request made to only use the melody of the song. Back then, the director for Bangladesh Television was Amiruzzaman Khan. Before this job, he was working at Bangladesh Betar.

Abdullah Abu Sayed

Art director Imdad Hossain created a digital watch which was used to show the time before the news was aired. This clock could also show the time in Bangla as well. Enamul Haque, who was in charge of Bangladesh Television, said that since English is the international language, the clock had to be in English, and from then on, the time showed on television was in English. On 15th September 1972, they change their identity again as viewers were now greeted with the name Bangladesh Television, Dhaka. The television got tangled up on legal processes many times. This was the reason why many employees were always a bit tense about their positions as well as outsiders who were tensed about how long they would be able to work under those conditions. Change and transition was never an easy process.

To be continued…
The writer is Managing Director, Channel i
Translated by S.M. Intisab Shahriyar