TV9 & ABN Channels’ Tryst With Public Anger & Boycotts In Telangana

Yet another boycott of TV9 an ABN in Telangana is called for. For people involved in Telangana agitation, there is nothing new about the boycott. The channels have a long history of propagating hate against the very idea of statehood for Telangana. But after TV9′s slander of Telangana assembly and MLAs, this boycott could last longer than the previous ones with public anger over the top towards the reckless filth dished out by these channels. Already the 2 channels have been removed from cables across Telangana since Sunday evening and it stayed that way till now.

TV9 and ABN Channels are not new to public ire in Telangana. Their repeated attempts to belittle the Telangana movement earned the ire of public and repeated boycotts of their channels in the past, in 2010 and especially in 2011. In February of 2011, Telangana MSOs boycotted and plugged out all Andhra channels for 2 days. This happened soon after the police atrocities in OU. Andhra channels opposed to statehood did not show a single visual of police ransacking the Osmania University hostels and attacking students with tear gas shells and rubber bullets on the pretext of following National Broadcasters Association guidelines. But the same channels were repeatedly showing the clippings of the attack on Lok Satta Party chief N Jayaprakash Narayan on the assembly premises after his provocative speech. 

In incidents following the boycott, Telangana cable operators were even arrested by State Govt. In July the same year, TV9 did some bizarre things when the whole of Telangana was mourning the suicide of Yadi Reddy in Delhi for Telangana cause. Even though TV9 had an OB van stationed in New Delhi, the channel did not even bother to cover Yadi Reddy’s suicide there and instead sprung into action when Harish Rao expressed outrage when AP Bhavan didn’t allow the dead body in. Rao’s outrage was portrayed in caste angle that he hit a dalit employee! TV9 used even that tragic incident to discredit the Telangana leadership. 

Incidents like above left a huge distaste of these channels for the Telangana public. Hate for these channels owned by few Andhra moneybags, who get to lose big with creation of new State, propelled emerging newspaper and TV media that was supporting Telangana movement. Namasthe Telangana and V6 owe their success to the anti-Telangana propaganda dished out by these channels as much as they owe it to their novel programming/content

While the whole of Telangana saw a historic occasion when MLAs were swearing in their own assembly achieved after  a 6 decade struggle, TV9 told it’s viewers low-class, inefficient, uncouth people swore as MLAs when they cant even read the written word properly. Well, it pushed its luck too far. ABN on the other hand, right from Day 1, attributed actions and motives to Telangana Govt. to entrench hate against it in Andhra and among the Andhra settlers in Telangana.

While the Telangana legislature resolved to act against the channels for insulting the MLAs/MLCs and entrusted the speakers of both the houses to take required actions, the Telangana MSOs didn’t wait for the Govt. to act. They picked up from where they left previously and blocked the 2 channels completely in Telangana. It is not clear right now how long the boycott may continue and when the channels would apologize publicly and unconditionally to people of Telangana.