Ubaidur Rahman (

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

: عبيدالرحمان) was an

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and broadcaster professional credited as one of the founders of

Pakistan Television Pakistan Television Corporation (; reporting name: PTV); also known as ''Pakistan Television'', is the Pakistani state-owned broadcasting, broadcaster founded by the Government of Pakistan, operating under the Ministry of Information & Broadc ...

(PTV), the state-owned

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

and

commercial broadcasting Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship, for example. It was the United States' first model ...

television network. He also helped expand the commercial activities of

Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (); also known as ''Radio Pakistan'', serves as the national public broadcaster for radio in Pakistan. Although some local stations predate its founding, it is the oldest existing broadcasting network in P ...

Brief PTV history

In 1961, Pakistani industrialist

Syed Wajid Ali Syed Wajid Ali () (20 December 1911 – 14 June 2008) was a leading industrialist of Pakistan who is also known for his services to the Olympic Movement for 26 years. He became the President of Pakistan Olympic Association in 1978 and stayed ...

(owner of Packages Limited) initiated a television project in Pakistan, signing a joint venture agreement with

Nippon Electric Company is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inter ...

(NEC) of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Ubaidur Rahman was appointed by Syed Wajid Ali to head and develop this television project. After pilot transmission tests, the project's control was given to

President Ayub Khan Mohammad Ayub Khan (14 May 1907 – 19 April 1974) was a Pakistani military dictator who served as the second president of Pakistan from 1958 until his resignation on 1969. He was the first native Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, comm ...

's government in 1962. The project team began work in a small studio within a tent in the

Radio Pakistan The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (); also known as ''Radio Pakistan'', serves as the national public broadcaster for radio in Pakistan. Although some local stations predate its founding, it is the oldest existing broadcasting network in P ...

compound in

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

, Pakistan, where a

transmission tower A transmission tower (also electricity pylon, hydro tower, or pylon) is a tall structure, usually a lattice tower made of steel that is used to support an overhead power line. In electrical grids, transmission towers carry high-voltage transmis ...

was constructed. On 26 November 1964, the first TV transmission from Lahore took place. In 2012, former Managing Director of PTV

Agha Nasir Agha Nasir (9 February 1937 – 12 July 2016), was a Pakistani director, producer, broadcaster and TV playwright. He started his career at Radio Pakistan in 1955. He later directed TV films and worked in the Pakistani television industry fo ...

wrote a book on the history of PTV titled: ''PTV: Another Day, Another World''. It details his experiences while working there for over 50 years.Interview: Agha Nasir on Dawn newspaper
Published 16 Sep 2012, Retrieved 1 December 2018

References

Pakistani electrical engineers Pakistan Television Corporation executives Pakistani television people Recipients of the Pride of Performance Recipients of Tamgha-e-Imtiaz History of mass media in Pakistan {{Pakistan-tv-bio-stub