...television is off to a phenomenal start, with Afghans now engrossed - for better or worse - in much of the same escapist fare that seduces the rest of the world: soap operas that pit the unbearably conniving against the implausibly virtuous; chefs preparing meals that most people would never eat in kitchens they could never afford; talk show hosts wheedling secrets from those too shameless to keep their troubles to themselves.
The latest national survey, which dates to 2005, shows that 19 percent of Afghan households own a television, a remarkable total when considering that not only was owning a TV a crime under the Taliban but that a mere 14 percent of the population has access to public electricity.
In a more recent study of Afghanistan's five most urban provinces, two-thirds of all people said they watched television every day or almost every day.
"Maybe Afghanistan is not so different than other places; people watch television because there is nothing else to do," said Muhammed Qaseem Akhgar, a social analyst and newspaper editor. Reading is certainly less an option; Only 28 percent of the population is literate. "Where else can one find amusement?" Akhgar asked.
Each night at 7:30, people in Kabul obey the beckoning of prime time much as they might answer the call to prayer. "As you can see, there is truth on the television, because all over the world the mother-in-law is always provoking a fight," said Muhammad Farid, a man sitting in a run-down restaurant beside the Pul-e-Kheshti Mosque, his attention fixed on an Indian soap opera that had been dubbed into Dari.
....Kabul has eight local television stations, including one feebly operated by the government. "The key time slots are from 6 to 9 p.m. because that's when people switch on their generators for electrical power," said Saad Mohseni, who runs Tolo, the channel that dominates the market in most of the country. "People love the soap operas."
"We've just bought the rights to '24,' the American show," he added. "We had some concerns. Most of the bad guys are Muslims, but we did focus groups and it turns out most people didn't care about that so long as the villains weren't Afghans."