Blootics

We all know Azhagiri has been doing spoilsport with SUN TV right from the day Dinakaran published a news article on who is going to be the next chief minister. recently he started his own cable opeation in Madurai named RCV. Sun TV and RCV are having Royal combat in the madurai local and both are struggling for days to retain or capture the market. Now, RCV in an sudden change, has knocked the doors of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) seeking its help in getting Sun TV signals.

In a never-before-seen cable war, Sun TV group’s channels went off the air in many households in Madurai, a region over which Azhagiri holds sway. “The Sun Network is refusing to give us its bouquet of pay channels. We wrote to them twice in April and May requesting them to provide their network decoders. But there is no word from their end so far. So, we have sent our lawyer to TRAI to bring the issue to its knowledge,” Azhagiri said.

Accusing Sun TV Network of denying its signals to RCV, he pointed out that it acted in contravention against TRAI’s interconnection regulation which stated that “every broadcaster shall provide on request signals of its TV channels on a non-discriminatory basis to all distributors of TV channels including cable networks.” Azhagiri, who harbours a bitter enmity towards the Maran’s ever since a newspaper controlled by the latter published a controversial opinion poll last year in which the former’s popularity rating was pegged very low, had earlier in the month successfully prevented a possible rapprochement between Karunanidhi and his grandnephews Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi.

In its statement, SCV wondered why Azhagiri, who had snapped all ties with Sun TV and those connected with it, was so anxious to get their signals that he was prepared to approach the courts and TRAI. “RCV has not given us the number of subscribers and cable operators, which is a pre-condition for giving signals,” an SCV official pointed out, who further said that only public pressure had compelled RCV to come asking for Sun TV signals which it had blacked out initially.

The truth was that the people, especially womenfolk, were deeply agitated that after operators went with RCV they were unable to see their favourite channels from the Sun group. Also, Sun TV claimed that it was put to heavy loss due to illegal tapping of signals by the RCV, owned by chief minister’s son M. K. Azhagiri and his agents. It filed many complaints but the police either refused to receive them or take action. This Monday, Sun TV moved high court, and a writ petition, filed by L Jyotheeswaran, authorised signatory of Sun group, contended that RCV and a group of 11 local cable television networks had been illegally tapping the signals of Sun TV and distributing them to viewers.