It was a different cable war that played out in the city on Tuesday. Right from the wee hours, hundreds of vehicles carrying more than 10,000 cable TV operators from across the state had started descending on Mount Road, where a big tent had been erected in front of the TNEB office, the venue of the one-day sit-in fast by these cablemen to protest the high-handedness of Maran brothers-owned Sun TV Network.
Loudspeakers kept blaring out the angry outpourings of cable operators. Charges flew thick and fast on how Sun Network was mounting hurdles in the revival of Arasu Cable Corporation, which is being dubbed as a move to free the industry from the clutches of Sun Network.
Also in the line of fire was Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV), an arm of Sun Network, for arbitrarily hiking the carriage rates for Sun TV package. Thamizhaga Cable TV Operators’ General Welfare Association state president Sakilan accused Sun Network of indulging in a disinformation campaign against the yet to be relaunched Arasu Cable Corporation.
?Fearing decimation of business, Sun Network is running an anti-Arasu campaign, asking channel operators, especially the north Indian and English channel ones, not to ink signal sharing deal with the government entity, Arasu. We came to know that SCV is putting unfounded fears in the minds of channel owners not to choose Arasu as their MSO carrier. Secondly, the carriage cost for the Sun bouquet has been doubled from R35 to R70 after citing high TRP. We totally reject this hike as either operators will have to pay this from their own pockets or pinch the end subscribers to pay more for their monthly cable service,? he said.
Sakilan demanded restoration of business of those cable operators who refused to toe the SCV line of doing cable business. ?Operators lost their business when they confronted SCV for hiking the carriage cost of the Sun Network package. The politically-backed SCV used the state police to snatch the operator’s licence away from the dissenters and hand it out to pliant operators. Close to 1,000 operators were forced out of the cable business by SCV. We demand restoration of licence to the operators ,? he said.