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Tuesday, 14 February 2012 |
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Sri Lanka’s national TV broadcaster Rupavahini, which started airing on February 15, 1982, completes 30 years this month. In a single generation, Sri Lanka has become a nation of avid TV viewers who derive information, entertainment and occasionally education too from this mass medium. Surveys have found that TV is the single most popular source of information on current affairs for both urban and rural households. From advertisers to politicians, everyone is clamouring to get on the ‘idiot box’! Today’s Wiz Quiz devotes some questions to the history of TV broadcasting in Sri Lanka. 1. Television broadcasting in Sri Lanka started as a private effort through a company named Independent Television Network (ITN), whose transmissions commenced on April 13, 1979 using one kiloWatt (1kW) transmitter and 65ft transmission tower which provided a signal coverage of 15 mile (24km) radius of Colombo. The company was taken over by the government within a few weeks and TV broadcasting remained a state monopoly until the early 1990s when private stations were allowed. ITN’s three directors were pioneers of the medium in Sri Lanka. One of them was Shan Wickramasinghe, who later founded another TV station and is still active in the broadcast industry. Who were the other two? 2. Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation was created by an Act of Parliament in January 1982 to serve as the national TV broadcaster, and it commenced transmissions on February 15, 1982. Its management is headed by a chairman of the Board of Directors appointed by the government. The first chairman of Rupavahini was an experienced civil servant who had earlier been the first Ceylonese Director General of Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia. Who was he?
3. South Asia’s first TV drama series was ‘Dimuthu Muthu’ which was first broadcast in the early 1980s and created Sri Lanka’s first TV stars, Devika Mihirani and Amarasiri Kanlansooriya. It was directed by one of the most versatile professionals in both film and TV media in Sri Lanka, who ventured into TV in the late 1970s after a path-breaking career as a feature film director and cinematographer, and later the founder general manager of the State Film Corporation. Who was he? 4. A highly experienced Lankan radio broadcaster became the first announcer on Sri Lanka’s national TV broadcaster Rupavahini during its maiden transmission on February 15, 1982 when he conducted the live broadcast inaugurating the station. Interestingly, he later became the first announcer of the privately owned station named TNL, when it commenced transmissions on July 21, 1993. Who is this versatile broadcaster who has made half a century of significant contributions to broadcasting in Sri Lanka? 5. Although TV broadcasts commenced in Sri Lanka only in April 1979, three years earlier the Colombo residence of Arthur C Clarke had become the first household to have a working television set. It was receiving TV transmissions via a communications satellite, the concept of which he had first proposed in 1945. Which country’s space research organisation donated a satellite TV receiving facility to Clarke? At that time, it was the only privately owned Earth satellite station in the world. 6. The TV set is the most commonly found consumer electronic item in Lankan households today. According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2009/10 carried out by the Department of Census and Statistics, more urban an rural households own a TV set than they do radios (75.4%) VCD/DVD players (35.9%) or personal computers (12.5%). There is no significant urban-rural disparity in how TV sets are owned, and there are more TV sets than radios even in rural households. What is the nationwide percentage of households owning a TV set? 7. Three new mineral were first discovered in the lunar rock samples from the Sea of Tranquility, the first location where astronauts landed on the Moon during the Apollo missions in July 1969. One of them was named tranquillityite, and another pyroxferroite (both of them silicate minerals). The third, a titanium-rich mineral, was named after the three Apollo 11 astronauts of the first successful lunar mission. The mineral was later discovered also on the Earth. What is its name? 8. Which well known Greek philosopher gave this pragmatic advice: “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing”? 9. Hultsdorf (also written as Hulftsdorf) is an area of Colombo city best known as the center of legal activity, being the seat of Sri Lanka’s main law courts including the Supreme Court. It was so named in honour of the Dutch East India Company (VOC)’s Director of India and commander in chief of the company’s forces in Ceylon and on the Coast of India. He led the Dutch attack on the Portuguese occupying coastal areas of Ceylon, and maintained cordial relations with the Lankan king Rajasinghe II. However, he was killed in battle while besieging Colombo in 1656, shortly before Portuguese rule ended. What was his full name? 10. Soviet leader Josef Stalin is estimated to have killed 20 million of his own people in peacetime through man-made famines, executions, and the Soviet Communist Party’s war on the peasantry, known officially as collectivization. Few artists or intellectuals had the moral courage to speak up at the time. Which courageous Soviet era writer wrote, after a trip to the Ukraine in 1931: “There was such inhuman, unimaginable misery, such a terrible disaster, that it began to seem almost abstract, it would not fit within the bounds of consciousness”? 11. Actress Rooney Mara was nominated for the best actress in Oscar Awards for 2011, for her leading role in the American remake of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’ It was originally produced in Sweden in 2009 and was directed by Niels Arden Oplev. The American remake was directed by David Fincher. ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ was the first novel of a trilogy written by which Swedish writer? 12. The 2011 movie ‘The Help’ is about an aspiring author during the US civil rights movement of the 1960s who decides to write a book giving an African-American maid’s point of view on the white families she works for, and the hardships she goes through everyday. The lead actress, Viola Davis, has been nominated for the best actress Oscar for 2011 while two other actresses in this movie have also been nominated for best supporting actress Oscar. Viola Davis who is an African American actress best known for stage roles was earlier nominated for an Oscar in 2009 for a performance in which movie? 13. Director Terrance Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life,’ which won the Grand Prix “Palme d’Or” at Cannes film festival 2011, is nominated for best picture, best director and best cinematography Oscars for 2011. Terrance Malick’s movies are best noted for their breathtaking photography: his last four movies were all nominated for best cinematography Oscar. For which Terrance Malick directed movie did its director of photography Nestor Almendros win an Oscar back in 1979? 14. ‘Twelve Angry Men’ was a 1954 teleplay written by Reginald Rose for the Studio One anthology TV series. Initially staged as a CBS live production on 20 September 1954, the drama was later rewritten for the stage in 1955 under the same title, and again for a feature film, ‘Twelve Angry Men’ (1957) which starred Henry Fonda in the lead role and was directed by Sidney Lumet. It was remade by William Friedkin in 1997 starring Jack Lemmon in the lead. In 2007, Nikita Mikhalkov directed the Russian adaptation of the same movie. In 2011, a Sri Lankan adaptation of the story was performed as a play called ‘Dolahak.’ Who directed this play? 15. Sri Lanka played its maiden Test Cricket match against England 30 years ago, on February 17 – 21, 1982 at the P Saravanamuttu Stadium, Colombo, which England won by 7 wickets. The highest scorer of runs for Sri Lanka in what match was already an experienced first-class cricketer when Sri Lanka gained Test status. While he was dismissed without scoring in the first innings, he displayed his batting talents in the second innings by scoring 77. Who was this batsman? Last week’s answers1.Sumerian |
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