The new Punjabi language channel, Apna (Our Own), that began cable television broadcasts around a month ago, appears to have found a niche among viewers.
It joins a host of Sindhi language channels, and the hugely popular Pushto channel, Khyber, already on air.
The channel is the first in the country to offer all-day transmissions in Punjabi, the language of the largest number of people in the country, but with few publications coming out in it.
Punjabi is indeed the only language in which a daily newspaper is not regularly published.
This is in striking contrast to the situation of Sindhi, Pushto and also Balochi and Brahvi (the two languages of Balochistan), in which there are multiple newspapers.
The roots of the issue go back in history. Punjabi scholars, such as Fakhar Zaman, head of the World Punjabi Congress and an eminent poet and writer, says, "The ruling elite, whether British or Pakistani, have always acted against the interests of Punjabi."
The result of the various factors that have acted to marginalise Punjabi has been a kind of discrimination against the language.
Even though the classical Punjabi poetry of Bulleh Shah, Waris Shah and other Sufi poets is hugely popular, and kept alive through folk-songs, recitations and so on, fewer and fewer people speak Punjabi to their children, preferring Urdu, and the language is widely seen as one of the 'poor' not worthy of being spoken among the higher social classes.
As such, the TV Channel, Apna, offers a refreshing change. Its slickly produced news broadcasts, talk shows and plays have already found popularity.
Diversity
The TV channel, during programmes involving interviews of ordinary people out shopping, or at restaurants, has also had to struggle to persuade them to converse in Punjabi, but seems to have been able to do so.
Though PTV airs regular hour-long transmissions in regional languages, including Punjabi, Apna is the first channel to offer diversity and conduct all programmes in the mother tongue of over 50 per cent of the population.
"It was strange at first to hear politicians and anchor people speaking Punjabi, but I have grown to like the channel a lot now," said Huma Yousaf, a housewife.
She said, "They have also done programmes on the need to speak in Punjabi and use it for everyday life, and by hearing it, even my daughter, aged 12, is now trying out Punjabi for the first time in her life."
There are however fears that the channels in regional languages are dividing people further along ethnic and linguistic lines, with Pushto speakers turning largely to the Khyber channel's lively broadcasts, and in Sindh, Sindhi language channels are hugely popular.
The Apna channel is also being watched in the Indian Punjab.
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