'Kalaignar TV' to start beaming from tomorrow

Chennai, Sep 14 (UNI) Kalaignar TV channel will start beaming from tomorrow.

'Kalaignar' is a household name especially those of staunch DMK supporters and with the launch of the channel, DMK supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi would come to stay as a household image, in a manner of speaking.

Born out of a sudden feud in May this year between Mr Karunanidhi and his grand nephews including former Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran and Dayanidhi's elder brother Kalanidhi, 'Kalaignar TV' was conceived almost immediately as the fall out to check the mileage on 'Sun TV' the DMK would stand to lose.

The feud itself was triggered by the publication of an opinion poll on the true heir apparant to 'Kalaignar' in the DMK and the May 9 attack on the Madurai office of 'Dinakaran' which the Maran siblings owned.

The Maran brothers held 'Kalaignar's elder son Mr Alagiri responsible for the attack and incurred the wrath of Mr Karunanidhi.

The DMK party immediately passed a resolution at an emergency meeting here and sought the resignation of Mr Dayanidhi representing his late father Murasli Maran's Central Madras constituency in Lok Sabha.

Mr Karunanidhi had then joined hands with another local television channel 'Raj' and announced that the DMK would have its own channel soon in the interests of the party and it's ideals.

The party wasted no time in plunging into the ground work to get the channel off after appropriatel christening it 'Kalaignar TV'.

Hence, the birth of yet another channel in the midst of an impending television media war in Tamil Nadu, with atleast two more party based channels in the pipeline, 'Mega TV' of Congress MP and senior leader K V Thankabalu and 'Vasanth TV' of another Congress MLA Vasanth, a leading businessman of home appliances. Vasanth is also the younger brother of another senior Congress partyman Kumari Anandan.

Mr Karunanidhi also formed a government cable network ''Arasu cable tv Corporation'', in the hope of breaking the monopoly of Sun TV's ''Sumangali Cable TV''.

More UNI