By Abdul Basith MA, TwoCircles.net,
Kozhikode: The failure of Darshana TV, an entertainment and news based channel initiative from the part of Samastha Kerala Sunni Students Federation [SKSSF] has turned a big burden for the organisation. The leadership has started receiving immense number of complaints from the community regarding the programmes telecaste through the channel.
While starting the channel Samastha even took care to make Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, the channel chairman as it was keen on keeping a control over the channel activities. The channel then due to financial crisis even took up lottery advertisements and had to telecast entertainment programmes and advertisements which a section of the community felt was against the ethics upheld by Samastha and its late great leaders.
Since then the programme ratings were too low and they failed in winning advertisements from the major companies in Kerala. The only advertisements which they receive now are those from the gulf countries on contract basis. The Samastha leadership has received a lot of complaints regarding these advertisements due to obscene or unIslamic contents involved.
Since then Samastha has decided to keep a distance from the channel activities as they started feeling that ‘Darshana’ has lost its way. The Channel then made unsuccessful attempts to win back the lost support from Samastha by even airing a live telecast of the Samastha Conference held at Kooriyad and its ‘Vimojana Yathra’ conducted parallel to Kanthapuram Abubacker Musliar’s ‘Kerala Yathra’.
The channel then assured the Samastha leadership of making it profitable by starting news and news related programmes within next three months but the SKSSF without waiting for this to happen is on the way starting – a Malayalam news daily, which they haven’t named yet.
With SKSSF keen on keeping the channel at a distance despite all these efforts from the part of the channel, the channel officials sought financial aide through the expatriate community of Muslim League [IUML] – Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre [KMCC], but that too have been spoiled by some influences. The channel is now about to sack its 40 percentage employees as part of bringing down the total expense.
A few expatriate businessmen who made investments in the channel too have expressed their anxiety over the low ratings of programmes and Samastha’s decision to stay away from the channel. The channel MD, an Islamic scholar from Alapuzha, Mannar is having an investment of around one and half crore rupees in the channel.
There are allegations that another Islamic Scholar, who is the chief executive officer of the channel is utilising the channel for promoting his own business. The other complaint is regarding the channel officials using the vehicles brought for the channel on bank loans for their own private use.