Party-owned Tamil news channels face a challenge from new players

CHENNAI: In the run-up to the elections, Tamil news channels have been beaming riveting political content. From constituency reports, to debates, to opinion polls, they are going all out to grab eyeballs.
TN has the distinction of having the highest number of partyowned TV channels. For years, the public here has tuned to a few channels for their fill of daily news -Sun TV (founder Kalanithi Maran, son of DMK stalwart Murasoli Maran), Kalaignar TV (DMK) or AIADMK's Jaya TV.PMK's Makkal TV has been around for a decade.
This week, actor-politician Vijayakanth, CM face of the grand alliance of the DMDK, the four-party People's Welfare Front (PWF) and Tamil Maanila Congress launched Velicham TV .It's owned by VCK boss Thol Thirumavalavan. He's a member of the alliance.
But, in the past five years, the emergence of new channels such as Polimer, Puthiya Thalamurai, Thanthi and News7 Ta mil has led to a sharp fall in ratings hitherto enjoyed by the party-owned channels, weekly TRP ratings show.
The trend seems to indicate that viewers prefer unbiased reportage, and seem to like their younger anchors, lively debates and talk shows.
"When 24-hour Tamil news channels started, people wondered if viewers would be interested and if politicians would participate in debates. Now, parties approach us with a list of spokespersons," says a journalist with a leading channel. In TN there's always been a close link be tween politics and media, three CMs hailing from the movie industry. Party channels, which serve as propaganda tools, often get bogged down by their mandate, and often avoid controversial topics.
Even among the new private channels -some politician backed -there's an element of bias. Some, for example, lead their newscasts with state government news.
Ramu Manivannan, professor of political science at the University of Madras, says party channels "never present information in a neutral manner."
Political content telecast by them may influence voter opinion closer to elections. "If you repeatedly give some message, you are likely to influence their opinion," says Maj Gen (retd) Anil Verma of the New Delhibased Association for Democratic Reforms.