The fight between the Karunanidhi and Maran families has taken to the skies with the Maran-owned Sumangali Cable Vision trying to block Kalaignar TV.
CHENNAI: The fight between the Karunanidhi and Maran families has taken to the skies with the Maran-owned Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV) trying to block Kalaignar TV on the first day of its trial run on Wednesday and the government readying to launch its own cable television network in the state.
Kalaignar TV, named after the chief minister and offered as part of the Raj TV bouquet, is scheduled to go on air on September 15. Raj TV had advertised the channel’s trial transmission on Independence Day and requested viewers to tune in to it.
When complaints poured in from viewers that they were unable to view the relay of the new channel, Raj investigations led to “an expected mischief by the SCV,” as a Raj TV executive put it. “SCV kept changing frequencies to block the transmission of Kalaignar TV,” Raj TV managing director M Raajhendhran told DNA.
Things were set right after a senior government official called SCV top brass and conveyed a “strong message” from the chief minister. SCV however, denied it and said it had started telecasting Kalaignar TV in the slot allotted for Raj TV following an understanding between the two channels.
This is seen only as a beginning to a war which SCV will find difficult to fight in the long run. “Right now it is the monopoly of SCV, but in the long run it will not be able to match with the infrastructure of the government multi-system operator (MSO),” says Media Development Foundation president S Sasikumar.
But can the ruling party use the government MSO to meet political ends? “Not likely,” says Sasikumar. “It will be like
an entertainment highway anybody can drive along. It will be a level-playing field. If the ruling party tries to misuse it, there will be thousands of public interest litigations.”
SCV, which controls more than 80 per cent of the cable distribution in the state is now toying with a strategic shift to direct-to-home (DTH) television.
The Maran brothers have reportedly bought seven DTH Ku band transponders in the Insat 2B satellite launched in March 2007. Each such transponder can beam up to 25 channels. They have also been showing interest in transponders in the INSAT 4CR to be launched in September.
“DTH has always been on our agenda and it is not because of the government entering the cable distribution business that we are doing it,” a senior executive in Sun TV said.
Karunanidhi said the government cable company is not aimed at competing with others, but in generating revenues for the exchequer. “There is a difference between the government taking over the existing cable distribution (as tried by former chief minister J Jayalalilithaa) and having its own MSO,” he said.
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