AG, CNN Sign Affiliate Agreement for Dais

AG, CNN Sign Affiliate Agreement for Dais 

HONG KONG/LAHORE: Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific, Inc.’s CNN International and Pakistan’s Associated Group (AG) have signed a broadcast affiliate agreement for the upcoming Pakistani news channel, Dais.

The agreement provides Dais, which will broadcast in the Urdu language, access to a range of CNN video and newsgathering resources. The agreement also grants CNN reciprocal access to Dais’s news coverage of Pakistan to complement its own English-language reporting from its Islamabad bureau and regional resources. CNN will also provide professional training to Dais’s newsgathering team.

“This broadcast agreement will enable us to augment our high-quality coverage of news and events both in Pakistan and abroad by utilizing newsgathering support from CNN,” said Dais chief executive Fasih Ahmed. “Dais will provide fully contextualized information and analyses. We will present news that matters to our viewers in an in-depth, engaging, and energetic format helping them form well honed opinions. Our objective is to create premium news with style, dignity and grace,” said Ahmed.

“Dais now joins the select ranks of CNN broadcast affiliates who form an extensive and unparalleled global network and with which CNN International enjoys mutually-beneficial, reciprocal broadcasting relationships,” said Ringo Chan, Senior Vice President, CNN Broadcast Services and Affiliate Relations, Asia Pacific. “We look forward to working with Dais to provide CNN programming, training and video as they develop their network.”

In addition to its own quality coverage of Pakistan and the diaspora, Dais will also feature select CNN programming and news, dubbed in Urdu. Dais has its corporate headquarters in Lahore and bureaus in Islamabad and Karachi. Dais is AG’s flagship media project. AG, established in 1965, is one of Pakistan’s premier business houses. AG’s first media enterprise, Newsweek Pakistan, is being published under license from The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company, LLC since 2010.