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| Sunday, 20 November 2005 |
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Young Asia Television: A sustainable decade
Young Asia Television completes 10 years of telecast this year. Being a vital link that seeks peace through youth, not only for society but for the country as a whole. They've been quite candid in expressing their views. They claim to create a media space, through which young people across Asia, could express their thoughts and concerns on significant social and development issues. YA TV was set up ten years ago, during the time that the television scenario was changing in the world. "All the satellite channels were covering all areas and were targeting South Asia, in a way that they hadn't until then.
Of course it was permanently India and China for the population but generally South Asia. So we thought it was a good time to come up with a TV initiative that really reflected the needs and concerns of South Asia," says Sharmini Boyle, Chief editor, YA TV. Yet all the TV programming that was being featured through the satellite channels weren't really coming from the Southern part of the world. People couldn't see things minor issues or entertainment from Nepal or Bangladesh, unless there were floods of monumental proportions or a cyclone that makes big news. According to Sharmini, there was no news of what all those people were doing and thinking in those countries. And as a result, Young Asia Television was launched in 1995 as a regional initiative to reflect the concerns of South Asian regions. She points out the fact that youth are not exposed to appropriate programmes, "Youth are stereotyped in societies. They don't get targeted except for stereotypical programmes." She says that even Channels like MTV has changed their focus, as they've realised that people want more than just music," they do features and other stories. So we thought that young people were really overlooked to a great extent. Some of the larger concerns like unemployment, education, lifestyle etc. in society today are related to young people. That's how our main focus turned out to be youth." YA TV didn't want to be yet another television station, with the rest of the other channels. Instead, they wanted to address more of the issues that mainstream TV wasn't looking at, "We didn't want to provide entertainment but look at issues like, social justice, environmental conservation, sustainable development, human rights and other things." Sharmini says the need to liberalise the media was growing all over Asia at that time. "In 1994, the private television and radio companies were allowed to broadcast news. Until then news had been the prerogative of the state broadcast stations. That's when we took our first step." The YA TV concept also involved bringing young people together. Priority was given to young people who were really interested in working with the media and to learn about issues at the same time. YA TV started with a lot of youngsters even from countries like India and Nepal. But eventually they realised that the programmes weren't sustainable. "In different South Asian countries the television world develops differently. A programme made about the different South Asian countries would be rejected in India as they have their own needs and market. Everything has to be looked at from the Indian perspective. Also we learnt to make the serious issues more dynamic, in the way we present them. Nepal and Sri Lanka were successful but the dynamics of the television industry's such that it's a totally advertising and market driven industry that has no space for anything that's out of the world of entertainment." Having changed the focus to Sri Lanka, in 1998, YA TV introduced a peace programme. Back then, the war was at its peak and it was a very divided mind set as people were only seeing what the state media was giving about the conflict, says Sharmini. The programme brought up the causes of war. At the moment they claim to be involved in the media intervention for peace building where they try to help the community understanding across the country and humanise the whole issue. "We've got about 130 people working here. We work on current affairs. For example the Presidential Elections but we'd look at it from the perspective of promoting peace as it's the focus. Our teams also travel to the conflict areas regularly. And there are other peace and media interventions that we work with. With UNDP and UNICEF, we try to create a series on land mine awareness. After the ceasefire agreement was signed and people started going back to their houses, the landmine issue became particularly serious. So we made a series of public awareness videos and broadcasters." She adds that YA TV also made a teledrama called 'Take this Road' and are making one at the moment focusing on the impact of the tsunami. Talking about the affected youth during war, Sharmini says, YA TV press to engage the ones who grew in the atmosphere of war, in its programmes, trying to showcase positive things that they are doing. 21-year-old Ruwani Gunawardena who's been at YA TV a little over a year says that it's fun working there. "The working environment is just great. You don't get stressed out." Being an assistant producer, Ruwani says they work on stories based on peace, mainly. "I work for 'No War Zone.' We go on shoots, come back and try to put the story together. She feels that the youth in Sri Lanka should actually be more involved in the peace process. "People who work for the media are aware of it but most of the youngsters don't know what they could do to contribute towards a peaceful country. Their involvement would make a bigger different." 25-year-old Chameera Fernando who's a senior producer has been there for five years. He says that his duty is to do awareness programmes for youngsters. "Mainly on peace building and to make them aware of ways to achieve peace without a war." He feels that most of the youth today suffer more from unemployment and financial difficulties more than the ethnic conflict. Totally content with his work there, Chameera claims that they're a special group of people who work solely towards peace, through media. "It's a big responsibility. The three of us went to Jaffna during the war for 14 days. There we had a chance to see and hear those people who suffered endlessly. Having spoken to them, we realised that we should somehow change the minds of the southern people about the people who live in the North." 21-year-old Sean Steven, a producer at YA, says he's been there for four months. Sean works on peace based stories and travels to places like Batticaloa, Ampara for shoots. He feels that youth play a major role in achieving peace, "They may seem to be merely enjoying life but if you take a look at young people who work at a place like Young Asia television, there's a lot of hard work and they make a major contribution." He thinks that if people could be more active and start practising what they preach, there'll be major progress." 23-year-old Iqbal Ajid is a senior producer for their peace programme 'Vilippu.' He said "We cover a lot of issues focusing on the refugees, mothers of soldiers and people who suffer in the conflict areas. We talk to them about their difficulties." In his point of view, youth in Sri Lanka undergo a lot of financial problems, "But they need peace, that's the bottom line." |
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