Government advertisements promoting the month-long Twenty20 Cricket World Cup and other government-sponsored cultural events have occupied hundreds of operational billboards in three major cities, much to the dismay of private advertising firms.
Billboard owners and firms concerned say because of such promotional activities, they would have to face losses amounting to at least Tk5-10 crore.
The authorities did not feel any obligation to discuss such matters with the owners before taking over the billboards in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet – three venues of the T20 World Cup which Bangladesh is hosting for the first time.
The billboards containing logos of the cricket board, the cultural affairs and sports ministries or the Armed Forces Division come from the government side. Most of the billboards were occupied in February, before the Asia Cup cricket tournament.
“In the last two to three years, the trend of grabbing billboards by both the political parties and the government has increased. Businesses have lost crores of money because of the practice,” Hazi Md Rashed, secretary of Bangladesh Outdoor Advertising Establishment Owners’ Association (BOAEOA), told the Dhaka Tribune.
Rashed, also owner of Century Art, further said: “No doubt the World Cup and the national anthem events will bring glory for us, but nobody from the government felt the need to tell us about the matter beforehand.”
The billboard owners had been informed and invited by the government to attend a meeting before the 2011 Cricket World Cup.
Morshed Ahmed, a senior executive from Udayan advertising firm, said 16 of their billboards had been grabbed by the government in the capital. “Before the 2011 World Cup, the government called a meeting and told us which billboards they wanted.”
“We also contacted our clients attached with the government letter then and negotiated the matter. But this time nobody bothered informing us,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
Only a few months ahead of January 5 national election, the ruling Awami League resorted to a massive billboard campaign in the capital, and later outside Dhaka, which is unprecedented in the country’s history.
The government earlier took over a number of billboards after the verdict on maritime boundary dispute with Myanmar.
Businessmen say because of the confrontational political activities that took place just before the election, many of them faced losses. Most of the billboards then were seen empty for several months.
But as the T20 World Cup neared, the Bangladesh Cricket Board occupied billboards in lucrative positions, most of which carried advertisements of reputed businesses.
A senior executive of Ad Valley claimed that some politically-influential advertising companies were also taking over billboards, with the help of government men, ahead of the cricket festival.
Mizanur Rahman, CEO of Bangladesh Publicity and also a senior leader of the BOAEOA, said: “An advertisement agency attached with the World Cup celebration concert also grabbed billboards of multinational company products.
“But there is no remedy,” he said.
Awal Hossain, a senior executive of Rupayan Advertising Agency, said six of their billboards in different prominent places had been taken by the government.
“Lots of our billboards are free but the government did not take any of them. We will go for negotiation if the government frees the six,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
Morshed Ahmed, an executive of E-Vision advertising firm, calculated that during the month-long World Cup, they would face loss of at least Tk30,000 for each of the billboards.
Seven of their billboards on Airport Road have been occupied. “We are thinking about how to free those,” he said.
The Dhaka Tribune tried to contact Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor and Deputy Sports Minister Arif Khan Joy over the phone. But they could not be reached.