The News Minute | November 25, 2014 | 10.43 am IST
The stand-off between cable operators, the state government and Kannada news channel TV9 has taken a new turn with the cable operators association saying that they did “punish” TV9 Kannada and News 9 but stopping telecast, but the government had nothing to do with it.
The two news channels TV9 Kannada and News 9 owned by Associated Broadcasting Company Limited were taken off air for a few hours by the cable operators between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. The broadcast of the channels was restored some time on Tuesday.
In September, TV9 Telugu had been blacked out in Telangana.
Speaking to The News Minute on Tuesday, the president Patrick Raju said that the association was angry with TV9 because of the latter’s treatment of them. He said that he had not issued any order to cable operators asking them to stop telecast. “Where did they (TV9) get the press release from when I have not issued any (order)? Have I signed it, or even used the latterhead (of the association)? We wanted to punish TV9, so I called up people and told them to switch off.”
He said that the whole issue started with an article published by Bangalore Mirror on November 23 titled “Will minister back Bescom in its war on dangling cable wires?”. Raju claimed that a particular official in TV9 was behind the story. “When I saw the story, I knew immediately it was (him). So we to the TV9 office yesterday to speak to them. But they made us wait for one and a half hours at the gate. They dint care (to meet us). So we wanted to punish them.”
The Bangalore Mirror story was about Bangalore Electricity Supply Company’s move to sort out cables that were hanging loose and electrocuting people by accident.
Raju claimed that the cables used by the operators were very few and that most of them had been laid by internet providers.
He also claimed that TV9 had made no attempt to contact the association when the transmission had been cut. “I cant understand why they dint contact us,” Raju said.
Asked about how the energy Minister D K Shivkumar and the government fit into all this, Raju said that for the last months “something has been going on. Everyday they (TV9) shows something about Shivakumar."
“We have not troubled anyone, and no government – neither the BJP, Congress or the Dal (Janata Dal Secular) has had a problem with us. What about the government? Governments will come and go. But we have a lot of problems, we have asked them (TV9) many times to cover (out problems), but if there is a dog bite, they will show it for two hours. They cover Telugu films all the time and don’t cover Kannada. With the digitization we have faced a lot of problem. If the government cuts our wires, will they come (to help us)?” Raju says.
Protests
Running a programme on the alleged targeting of the channels on Tuesday, TV9 Kannada said that the telecast had been stopped for 16 hours.
Condemnation and protests have been seen across the state, with TV9 carrying statements of various seers, BJP leaders and Kannada language groups.