CHENNAI: It had to happen someday! Film producers in Chennai have drawn up plans to start their own satellite TV channel which will exclusively air feature films.
At Rs 10 per month per household, movie-buffs would be shown a host of movies every month, which would keep them away from VCDs. This will also create a revenue stream for the producers who don't earn much money from the sale of VCDs.
A News Today report says that the members of the Tamil Film Producers Council have come up with the idea of launching a satellite channel on their own - Thamizh Thirai - in September. New movies would be telecast simultaneously on the channel on the day of their release, adds the report.
"All the newly-released films would be telecast through an arrangement with cable TV operators," director RK Selvamani who is also the managing director of Thamizh Thirai, was quoted as saying.
Stating that the movies would be simultaneously released on the small screen and in cinema theatres, Selvamani says members of Tamil Film Producers Council have floated a public limited company 'Tamil Entertainment Art Media Limited', which would take care of running the channel.
Various committees have been formed consisting of noted producers and directors to help in the channel's functioning.
Veteran producer Kovai Thambi would be the president. While the finance committee would be headed by K Muralidharan, Chandraprakash Jain, R Madhesh, the review committee would comprise S A Chandrasekhar, R B Choudhary, K Rajan, A M Rathinam, Oscar Ravi, Pushpa Kandaswamy.
The creative committee would comprise Bharathiraja, Manirathinam, Shankar, K S Ravikumar, the marketing team would have Kovai Thambi, Kutty Padmini, Hemnag Babuji and the cable TV co-ordination team would have C Gnanavelu, Babu Ganesh and Swaminathan.
The advisory committee would comprise eminent film personalities including K Balachander, A V M Saravanan and Ibrahim Rowther.
The report also indicates that the association would soon start a FM radio channel similar to Thamizh Thirai, aimed to counter the private FM channels airing songs of new Tamil films which do not in any way benefit the producers.
The trial run of Thamizh Thirai would commence in August and start transmission by September, says the report.
Cable operators can contact Thamizh Thirai Cable TV Urimayalargal Sangam , 52, Kannamal Street, Kannabiran Colony, Saligramam, Chennai-33.