THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sabha TV, the television channel aimed at broadcasting mainly live proceedings of the Kerala assembly and programmes to other television channels, have been affected adversely due to fund shortage. It was the CPM leadership’s decision that led former speaker P Sreeramakrishnan to launch Sabha TV on Over the Top (OTT) media platform in August last year. However, Legislature secretary S V Unnikrishnan Nair told TNIE that the delay in telecasting programmes is due to the change in government. A high-power committee led by the speaker has been constituted.The channel was launched on Chingam 1 last year by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla via a virtual meet.
With this, the state created history as it was the first time a state assembly had launched a television channel. It was started along the lines of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha TV channels.Apart from telecasting proceedings of the assembly, interview-based programmes anchored by Sreeramakrishnan himself were shown with legislators cutting across political leanings attending. Programmes like ‘Nattuvazhi’, in which the strides made in certain constituencies like Dharmadom, Ponnani, Kozhikode, Piravom, Kottarakkara, Chirayinkeezhu, Parassala and Neyyattinkara, were shown on various news channels after purchasing half-an-hour time slots. A Legislature Secretariat employee told TNIE that a separate budgetary allocation has not been made for the smooth running of the channel. The current procedure being followed is that as and when a programme is given sanction by the assembly, funds are allocated by the government.
“Not many people are bothered to download the Sabha TV mobile app from Google Play Store and, hence, the viewership is less compared to other current affairs channels on OTT platforms. Similarly, showing the same programmes on all leading Malayalam news channels is also seen as a drawback and there should be a tie-up with Doordarshan,” said the employee.
After the recent assembly elections, Sabha TV has not aired any programmes on the channels forcing the empanelled programme producers to seek jobs elsewhere. However, Unnikrishnan Nair told TNIE that this is just a temporary phase due to the change of government. He also said Sabha TV’s aim is to create awareness among the television viewers, which explains why the same programmes are shown on various news channels.
“We got Rs 1.2 crore alone from advertising revenue from our novel initiative. A high-power committee has been set up and once the next session of the assembly begins on Thursday, a decision on budget allocation will be initiated in the first sitting by Speaker M B Rajesh. We will not wind up Sabha TV as there will be no issues with the fund allocation,” said Unnikrishnan.