Will Vijay Start His Own Channel?

One of the popular myths Vijay busted by winning Tamil Nadu is the need for a Media Support to win an election.

Social Media gave the much-needed visibility for Vijay’s Rallies and Public Meetings. National Media gave good coverage but then, the local Tamil Media did not help him in many ways.

The reason for it is because there are only two Top Channels in Tamil Nadu. One is Sun TV associated to MK Stalin’s family and the other is Kalignar TV.

Sun TV is indisputable market leader in TVR Ratings. The Political Support helped it even more. Sun TV is almost like DMK’s Mouthpiece and so, the channel never really helped Vijay and TVK Party in any way. The usual second ranker, Puthiya Thalaimurai is also known to be Pro-DMK.

News18 Tamil Nadu and News Tamil 24X7 were usually in third or fourth slots and were considered relatively neutral. Other popular Channels, Kalignar TV is DMK leaning and Thanthi TV is somewhat neutral.

So, it is like DMK is ruling the roost as far as the Media support is concerned. There is Jaya TV supporting AIADMK. However, it does not feature prominently in news channel ratings.

Vijay is lucky enough to come to power despite not having a Strong Media Support. But in Politics, things are not always the same and no two elections have same conditions.

Vijay, in the next five years, should focus on improving in this area. Or else, the Opposition will use the same media base to prove himself a failure.

Strengthening himself in the media will also mean decimating DMK in that space. In Politics, you have to strengthen yourself and cut the size of the Opposite Parties.

It will be interesting to see if he will start a new News Channel or encourage some existing Channel to take on Sun TV.