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No live audiences or expensive prizes will be allowed in this year's Ramazan live transmissions on account of the COVID19 pandemic, Pemra has warned.

The regulatory authority issued a directive this week, saying, "There should strictly be no live audience during regular Ramadan Transmission at Sehr and Iftar timings as public gatherings for any purpose are deemed hazardous and probable source for spreading the disease not only among the audience but to the crew member/staff of the channels."

Other guidelines that must be followed include having only one guest on set at a time and if a show has multiple hosts, they are to maintain a distance of at least one metre from each other.

https://twitter.com/reportpemra/status/1250331177610698757

Studios and equipment must be regularly sanitised and arrangements for handwashing and sanitising should be made inside studios as well as at entrances, as well as for walk-through sanitising gates.

In light of the broader impacts of the pandemic which has brought the global economy to a standstill, Pemra has also ordered that there can be no "no display of gifts, bikes, cars, TV as currently world is suffering of hunger, scarcity of resources and joblessness" because "this would give a very negative impact."

Pemra's extensive new directives will mean that this year's Ramazan transmissions will be markedly different from the past, which saw an increasing array of prizes, and massive sets and studios specially constructed to accommodate hundreds in the audience. Such sets will also not be allowed this year.