Holy Crap!

I seem to have missed this news entirely: the Tamil Nadu government is planning to take over the cable operators in the state.

Hmm, so two or three years without any obvious power-mad incidents was too good to be true. Indira Gandhi nationalised banks, and now Jayalalitha is planning to nationalize (should that be state-ize?) cable access systems.

A few thoughts:

  1. If this is meant as an anti-DMK measure, it’s stupid. Anti-incumbency will eventually push the DMK back into power anyway. The DMK will then ensure that the state-owned broadcasting apparatus it controls shows only Sun TV and there is a total blackout of Jaya TV. As Salvor Hardin said, it’s a poor blaster that can’t point both ways.
  2. This can’t be passed off as an isolated incident. The central government has its own creeping nationalization process going on. It has the utterly loathsome ADC regime in telecom, and closer to the topic of television, it has stolen cricket broadcasting rights from the people who bought them legitimately and passed them to its inhouse pet Doordarshan.
  3. The cable TV takeover is ostentiably being done to improve customer satisfaction. I shudder to think what customer satisfaction will be like after six months of government operation.
  4. Points one and three suggest that anything done to shaft a political opponent will very likely end up shafting the electorate more.

0 Responses to Holy Crap!

  1. Kaps says:

    Jaya is doing this hoping that she can win the forthcoming elections.

  2. […] Cable Trouble Kaps on 01.25.06 in Business, Politics, Television at 4:23 pm Aadisht feels that Jayalalitha’s decision to takeover some cable operators (MSO’s) in Tamilnadu might backfire. Chennai’s cable TV subscribers already suffer because of the CAS regime and they might not want any more setbacks. […]

  3. Chenthil says:

    Hmm, Jaya doesn’t even pretend that she’s taking it over for people’s welfare. She just wants to shaft DMK and Karunanidhi fell into the trap. He took his MLAs to meet the Governor and Jaya promptly declared that he who cited ill health for not attending to the people now runs to the Governor whe it is for his personal property.

    All this is part of the Great Tamilian Tamasha. Nobody ever thinks here about Libertarianism / Free Market stuff. Karunanidhi through P. Chidambaram had IT raids on Jaya’s auditor’s house. This is her response.

    SCV is a monopoly and people were actually chafing against it. Even the Raheja controlled Hathway couldn’t compete due to the political muscle of SCV. So people in TN are actually happy on this move, though in the long run it will backfire. Principle of Here and Now, you see 🙂

Leave a Reply to ChenthilCancel reply