Mr Ravi Pachamoothoo
The SRM Group is expanding its presence in the small screen with a new general entertainment and news channel.
Vendar TV is expected to go on air on August 25, according to the group's Chairman, Mr Ravi Pachamoothoo. (Vendar means ‘king' in Tamil).
“Apart from providing entertainment content, Vendar TV will also focus on positive news. There is so much of negativity in most of the channels. We want to change that,” Mr Pachamoothoo told Business Line.
The required infrastructure is in place to launch the new channel. The group is waiting for certain clearances, he said.
The SRM group entered the television space with the launch of a news channel Puthiya Thalaimurai in August last year.
Puthiya Thalaimurai overtook Sun News in the Tamil news category in January with an average monthly channel share of 29 per cent, compared with Sun News' 25.1 per cent (according to TV viewership data from TAM Media Research). It has maintained the lead since then.
Data for April (till 21) show that Puthiya Thalaimurai's lead steadily climbing to 35.9 per cent (Sun News 25.7 per cent). Kalaignar Seithigal and Jaya Plus follow.
However, in the general entertainment category (GEC), Sun TV continues to rule with a share of 69 per cent in April, according to TAM Media, a joint venture between AC Nielson Research Services and Kantar Market Research.
With Vendar, SRM hopes to dethrone Sun in the Tamil GEC space.
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