CBN To Remote-Control A TV Channel

In a strategy that is so typical of him, the Telugu Desam Party Chief N Chandrababu Naidu has come up with a master plan to have an exclusive television channel for his self-promotion but without officially owning it.

There is a talk in media circles that he has roped in his close confidant and a TDP legislator from Anantapur district and an industrialist close to a senior TDP leader in Nellore district to buy an already registered news channel and launch the operations as early as possible.

Naidu's son Nara Lokesh is said to be actively associated with the project aimed at boosting the visibility of the TDP ahead of the 2014 general elections.

It will be a Kamma-Reddy combination of ownership as the two promoters chosen by Naidu for the media project belong to these two influential communities.

However, the TDP supremo will not have anything on record to prove that the project is his brainchild. 

The buzz in the media circles is that a  a senior journalist from TV5 has already been roped in with a hefty package.

Some more senior staff members are being recruited for the channel to be personally supervised by Lokesh.

In fact, Lokesh is said to be personally selecting the senior staff for the channel. Lokesh, who is being groomed to take over the reins of the party in future, is reportedly involved right from the concept stage. Earlier, Lokesh was actively associated with Studio-N channel owned by the father-in-law of Junior NTR.

However, the differences in the family had led to the exit of Lokesh from the media venture. Ever since, he was said to be toying with the idea of managing a news channel that can effectively highlight the party's policies and programmes.

The TDP supremo often points out that his party does not own any media house unlike other political parties and is thus purely dependent on public support.

Despite being a media-savvy politician, Chandrababu never loses an opportunity to remind his detractors that he does not own a news channel to give him the publicity. This moral high-ground may change soon.

So far, the two leading media groups-- Eenadu and Andhra Jyothy-- are seen as the mouthpieces of the TDP in general and Naidu in particular.

Since they have a significant share of the readership and viewership, the TDP did not feel the need to have an exclusive TV channel for itself to do its bidding.

However, with the elections approaching fast and the party facing a do-or-die situation, the top leadership has come to the conclusion that an effective communication platform was needed to take its message to the people on a sustained basis.