Chiranjeevi to launch TV news channel

By M H Ahssan

Claiming that the media is not giving due coverage to Prajarajyam president Chiranjeevi, the starturned-politician’s family has decided to launch their own Telugu news channel. Final touches are being given to the ‘Maa News’ channel and it will start beaming by Ugadi, sources in the party said.

The Chiranjeevi family already has a minority stake in ‘Maa TV’, and the news channel of the same name will be completely owned and run by the megastar’s family. The licence for the news channel was secured almost a year ago and the owners of ‘Maa TV’ have no objection in leasing it to the Chiru family, the sources said. The new channel will operate from the ‘Maa TV’ building in Panjagutta.

According to the sources, Chiranjeevi was prompted to launch a news channel after realising that the existing local channels are not giving adequate coverage to his political campaigns and roadshows across the state. ETV is identified with the TDP. And chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has got his son Jaganmohan Reddy running the ‘Sakshi TV’ channel and the multi-edition daily newspaper ‘Sakshi’. When it comes to Prajarajyam, the news channels are limiting themselves to showing few second clips of Chiranjeevi and Pavan Kalyan. Therefore, we have decided to start a news channel which will project Chiranjeevi as the protagonist of change and social justice, party sources said.

Party sources said a team of people are working on the project and that it will be ready in a fortnight’s time. Either P Mitra or P Prabhakar will be made in-charge of the channel, the sources said, adding that the channel will project the ideology of the PRP and promote the party as the only alternative to the ruling Congress party.

Another grouse of the Prajarajyam loyalists is that the local media gave extensive coverage to Chiranjeevi when he entered the political field. “But after that, the coverage has been focused on internal bickering in the district committees, organizational deficiencies and other minor lapses thanon the message of the leader. Thus, even as the election bugle is close to being sounded, Chiranjeevi will not be far behind in the media coverage,” one PRP leader said.