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BJP to have its own TV channel in Tamil Nadu
BJP’s state functionary said they will soon expand its Kerala JanamTV channel to TN, where the DMK and AIADMK have owned TV channels for decades.
Chennai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will soon expand its Kerala television channel to Tamil Nadu, where both the ruling DMK and opposition AIADMK have owned TV channels for decades.
A senior BJP state functionary said it has been decided to expand Kerala’s Janam TV launched in April 2015 to Tamil Nadu under the same name. “It will be the same team running the channel here and we will support them and the Tamil version will start very soon,” he said.
Party leaders said the channel was likely to start when BJP Tamil Nadu president K Annamalai would start his padyatra later this month. But since Annamalai is busy with Karnataka elections slated for May 10, his padyatra is likely to be postponed along with the channel’s launch. But, it would be on air ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, people in the know of the matter said. “We will rope in a celebrity to launch the channel.”
This is among BJP’s efforts to make inroads in the state where its image as the “saffron party” doesn’t find favour despite being in an alliance with the AIADMK. This alliance which started in 2017 following J Jayalalithaa’s death in December 2016 has been souring over time with questions being raised if the two would part ways for the parliamentary elections.
BJP believes the news media in Tamil Nadu has the backing the Dravidian parties so only a channel operated by them can communicate BJP’s vision for the people. After Annamalai took over as the chief of the party unit in the state in July 2021, he triggered a major controversy when he said that he will bring the media in his control “within six months” given that former BJP state president L Murugan was now the minister of state for information and broadcasting.
Three years after Janam TV’s launch in Kerala, it shot up to the number 2 spot during its coverage of the Sabarimala issue after the Supreme Court in September 2018 ruled that women of all ages be allowed to worship at the temple, against the ancient tradition which barred women of menstruating age. The channel hardened its stance along with the traditionalists against Kerala’s ruling Left Democratic Front government. Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) released figures at that time in which market leader ‘Asianet News’ remained number one followed by Janam TV.
TN's politics intrinsically linked to TV
In Tamil Nadu, each party has their own party mouthpieces in print as well as in broadcast. The DMK was the first to foray into television with Sun TV, named after the party’s rising sun symbol launched in 1993 by Kalanithi Maran, brother of Lok Sabha MP Dayanidhi Maran and son of party stalwart late Murasoli Maran. It had entertainment programmes along with news bulletins which set the trend for the rest to follow. Kalaignar TV is run by the DMK’s first family.
In competition, Jaya TV which began telecasting in 1999 has been the mouthpiece of the AIADMK for about two decades under J Jayalalithaa until her death in December 2016. It is now the propaganda arm of V K Sasikala and T T V Dhinakaran who after their ouster from AIADMK in 2017 stopped covering government programs led by then chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami. So their former loyalist turned rival Palaniswami who now leads the AIADMK launched NewsJ as the party’s official channel in 2018.
The audiences were aware that they were consuming propaganda. This was not to change until a decade ago with the rise of private television networks in Tamil aiming to be neutral such as Puthiya Thalaimurai, Thanthi TV, News 7 and Polimer who followed the format of 24x7 English news programming of live bulletins and debates.
In Tamil Nadu, Congress leaders own Vasanth TV and Mega TV. Even smaller parties have their own channels. PMK owns Makkal TV while DMDK owns Captain TV. VCK has Velicham TV. Political experts concur that the state has the highest number of television channels backed by political parties.
