The Party, live

Owning TV channels and news organisations has become a necessity for political parties. As highlighted by recent events in Tamil Nadu, Press and politics can be a potent combination. a list of the party channels:

WEST BENGAL

Akash Bangla: News and entertainment TV channel, controlled directly by the CPIM. CPIM state committee member Avik Dutta is managing director of the channel, launched on April 14, 2001, just before the Assembly elections. Since 1996, when Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was the Information and Cultural Affairs Minister, the Left Front government had been trying to set up a TV channel run by the state. It could not do so, because of legal reasons. Then Anil Biswas came up with the idea of a party-controlled channel. Funds came from city-based businessmen. The channel aims to give the party8217;s view of the news and is never critical of the party or its government.

Chobbish Ghanta: A round-the-clock news channel with content from Akash Bangla and cash from Zee. Again, Avik Dutta heads the body that runs the channel. Launched in 2006 with exclusive telecast of state committee meeting that decided on a successor to Anil Biswas. Popular news channel, more balanced in news presentation. But never sides against the CPIM in any critical issue. A big chunk of the staff came from Akash Bangla. Chhobbish Ghanta gradually became the news part of Zee Bangla. Zee is in revenue sharing partnership with Akash. The channel has good advertisement revenues.

TAMIL NADU

Sun TV: The oldest Tamil channel, was launched in 1993, and now has 13 channels. The Group, headed by Kalanidhi Maran, is valued at about Rs 15,600 crore in terms of market capitalisation. With the sun as its symbol and blessings of DMK president M Karunanidhi, the channel had been pro-DMK all these years. But with the present split in the family, the channel now hopes to regain its credibility, by projecting a 8216;neutral8217; image. The company has witnessed a steady erosion of its market capitalisation which stood at Rs 9,506 crore as per its current price of Rs 1,379.95 per share today. This represents a 16 per cent loss, nearly Rs 1,857 crore, in market capitalisation since April 23.

Kalaignar TV: Named after Karunanidhi, who is popularly referred to as Kalaignar, the latest Raj TV channel is expected to be launched on August 15. A Rs 269-crore turnover company, headed by M Raajendhran, a Sri Lankan Tamil, the channel has the blessings and support of M Karunanidhi and his DMK. The entertainment channel will have six news bulletins and programmes that would be friendly to the party. Raj TV, launched in 1994, already has three channels and hopes to have 11 more in its kitty soon, with the backing of the ruling DMK. On Tuesday, shares of Raj TV touched an all-time high of Rs 288.30 at the BSE after announcement of the launch of a new Tamil entertainment channel.

Makkal TV: Launched in September 2006, comes from the stables of the Pattali Makkal Katchi led by Dr S Ramadoss. The channel shows news and serious Tamil films, discussions, debates, interviews and Tamil folk art and music. Commercial films, film songs or advertisements do not figure on the channel which lays emphasis on Tamil flavour. In fact, in the news bulletins, the readers do not use English words and try to speak unadulterated Tamil. Of course, the news has a distinct pro-PMK slant.

Jaya TV: Launched in 1999, has Prabha Shivakumar as its managing director. She is one of the nieces of Sasikala Natarajan, a close friend of AIADMK supremo, J Jayalalithaa. The news content has a blatantly pro-AIADMK slant and the channel was started to compete with Sun TV. Jaya TV, a private limited company, is valued at about Rs 50 crore. The company recently got clearances for uplink facilities for two more channels 8211; Jaya Plus a 24-hour Tamil/English news channel and Jaya Max, a music channel.

KERALA

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Kairali: The CPIM sponsored Malayalam Communications Limited launched its news and entertainment channel Kairali in August 2000. In 2005, it started People, a 24-hour news channel, followed by a youth and entertainment channel, We, last month. Party state secy Pinarayi Vijayan is the prime mover of the company, which has about 2.5 lakh shareholders. It8217;s major investors are all NRIs. A bulk of its director board consists of CPIM nominees, though the only active party man on the board is A Vijayaraghavan MP. Malayalam actor Mamooty is its chairman. The three channels together employ about 250 people.

Jai Hind: The Congress is preparing to launch its news and entertainment channel, Jai Hind, in August. The party has entrusted its ground work to KPCC general secretary M M Hasan. Here also, NRIs form the bulk of investors. Obviously, since there is a 26 per cent cap on NRI money, the party has formed two separate companies8212;Jai Hind Communication Private Limited and Bharath Broadcasting Pvt Limited8212;which jointly draw NRI investment. The chairman is NRI businessman Aniyan Kutty and the CEO a veteran Malayalam journalist. The channel already has about 90 staff on board.

ANDHRA PRADESH

ETV2: Officially the state does not have any party-owned channels. But, it is common knowledge that the Eenadu Group-owned ETV2 is a big supporter of the TDP. Like the paper, it routinely runs stories against the ruling Congress party and Chief Minister Y S R Reddy. Recently, the Eenadu Group was in a public spat with the Congress government, after the latter started investigating the dealings of its Margadarsi Financiers.