Television of Talents

At this moment, talk shows are the most famous program almost in all the channels of Bangladesh. If we cut the word “famous” still the talk shows will keep spreading around the channels. One of the main causes is the budget of making a talk show is much lower. Dialogue program, criticizing program, interview program – these programs are basically under the talk show category.
In the former Pakistan the first dialogue based program in television that got massive attraction was basically a book introducing program. Abdullah Al Mamun was the producer of most of the programs. And Munir Chowdhury was the one and only host then. The way of his introducing a book could blow the audiences' minds away.
Later on another solo program became popular and it was called “Apnar Doctor”. Dr. A.Q.M. Badrudduza Chowdhury was as the host of the program. Most of the programs have been produced by Mominul Haque. Another prominent politician was Shamsul Huda Chowdhury, husband of ingenious singer Laila Arjumand Banu, speaker of the parliament and once an Information Minister. He had been hosting a program for a long time. The program's name was “Hey Nirupoma”. Actually the target audiences of the program were women and they style of his way of presentation could grab massive attraction. The script writer for the program was Dr. Nilima Ibrahim. The producer was Khaleda Fahmi. Much different stuff was in the program.
Rezaur Rahman has hosted a program named “Ain Adalat”. The audiences could know that the program was basically on Law and enforcements while seeing this. It has to be mentioned that Rezaur Rahman could easily present the program. But to make aware the audiences about laws the former chief justice Mostofa Kamal had been presenting the program for so long.
In a program titled “Shourove Gourobe” planned and hosted by Lutfar Rahman Riton there were chronicles of young martyrs who were involved in mass movements. Slum boy Alamgir has been come through the TV screen besides the martyrs like Salam, Barkat, Rafique and Jabbar. The first documentary report on martyr Noor Hossain's “Gonotontro Mukti Paak/Shoirachar Nipat Jaak” has been made by Riton for his “Shourove Gourobe” program. In this program almost all of the prominent personalities have participated along with the promising young people. With the participations of artist Abdul Latif, Bhasha Shoinik Gaziul Haque, Mahbubul Alam Chowdhury, Anisuzzaman, M.R. Akhter Mukul, Qaiyum Chowdhury, Hashem Khan, Rafiqun Nabi, Taslima Nasrin, etc the program has been produced by Ali Imam, Kamrunnesa Hasan and Ahsan Habib.
A program had been telecasted on how the houses in the city should be look, how the planning should be done, etc and it was hosted by architect Forhadur Reza. Dr. Hasan Zaman and Syed Ali Ahsan used to do program on religion.
Besides them music related programs have been telecasted where not only the songs have been played continuously but also discussions regarding music used to be held. The remarkable program on that was hosted by Dr. Abu Hena Mostofa Kamal. Mustafa Monwar also worked as host. At that time he was the host of many dance programs and others.
He has done various programs on between current generation and old generation; also did programs on spouse artists.
Mustafa Monwar had hosted a program where 5 new songs have been written with 5 musical instruments due to which both the presenter and the producer Abdullah Al Mamun had focused on the musical instruments rather than the singer.
Nowadays the use of “Live Phone in” in television programs is exceeding. Even a few days ago there was a bangla channel in London called “Vector”. They used to telecast LIVE phone in programs for 8 hours in a day. The viewers used to participate in every program of the channel by dialing up.

The writer is Managing Director, Channel i
Translated by Imtiaz Salim