Someone rightly said, “Nothing is impossible” and Kerala’s Janam TV rightly stands up to these words. Possibly, nobody used to consider the existence of Janam TV even in Kerala but because of its unbiased reporting and coverage of the ‘Sabrimala’ issue, it has now reached its peak since its inception in 2015.
Often facing criticism for its reportage, Janam TV made a surprise entry into Top 5 list among Malayalam News Channels. The credit for this will definitely go to the Sabarimala Temple issue, regarding entry of women of all ages inside the temple premises. According to the reports, ‘Janam TV, a right-leaning channel, was at the second position in the Malayalam news channels, in the week between October 20th to October 26th, 2018. It suddenly gained popularity in 42nd and 43rd week between October 13th and 26th.
Going by the lines of data published by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, while the impressions in the standard regional news target group in the 41st week for Janam TV was 7438, in 42nd Week, the impressions multiplied over thrice, to 24509.
These numbers are impressive and one can surely put the bet on this emerging news channel which is now at the 2nd spot only to Asianet News reaching thereby, defeating the likes of well-established channels like Manorama News and Mathrubhumi.
GK Suresh Babu, chief editor of Janam TV said, “One of the reasons for the increase in our viewership is because of our credibility. Especially for the ongoing Sabarimala issue, people tune into Janam TV because of our truthful reporting on the issue.”
In the Sabarimala issue, the Supreme Court in its historic verdict allowed the entry of women into the temple, as women falling under the age group of 10-50 years were denied entry into the temple. This was a tradition as the temple celebrated Lord Ayyapa’s celibacy, who according to beliefs had refused to marry Goddess Malikappurathamma. The Lord said that he could marry the goddess only if there comes a time when Kanni Ayyappans (those who visit the temple for the first time) stop coming to visit him. Thus, Lord Ayyapa remained a celibate. It is believed that Lord Ayyapa did not want young women to come and see him out of his affection towards the goddess. Therefore, the tradition of women not visiting the Lord has been present for thousands of years. It is not so much in the nature of prohibition for that matter, but something that is intimately connected with the history and beliefs of the temple.
An editor of other news channel said, “During the last two days of the Sabarimala coverage, it was only Janam TV that was at the Sannidhanam – mainly because they were only ones taking a pro-right stand, and their journalists were the only ones who were not targeted.”
The increase in the viewership can also be accorded to RSS and the Nair Service Society (NSS) because they asked their cadre to watch Janam TV for the true version of events, which increased their viewership a lot.
Also, the important factor for their rise to glory was the fact that they very well articulated and covered the whole incident where Rehana Fathima had sanitary pads in her irumudikettu and this helped them to gain a larger audience.
One can also give credit to the rise in unprecedented Hindu unity, which means that people are now giving due regards to their sentiments which till now had to succumb as it was being tarnished by the ‘intellectuals’ in their own rights i.e. the left party.
Many, rather mostly news channel in Kerala are either left-oriented or ‘centre to left’ but here is a resurgence of the little bud amongst them that is all set to blaze with its unbiased reporting and coverages. It also puts forth insights and aspects of every news development that till date was made mockery of by the left media wing.