MTV Networks Sri Lanka: Our country's top Cheater and Loser

MTV Networks Sri Lanka, what is said to be the premier TV network in Sri Lanka, is up to their usual tricks of getting publicity and money, as well as having a few major failures. Why Maharaja Organization jumps straight on to the road to failure is still a mystery. Before coming to the latest topics relating MTV Networks, let us look at their history of cheating and failure.

The Satellite Sirasa
Sirasa TV launched its satellite service to the U.K. in December 2002, begining their service by announcing election results of that year's election. Maharaja spent much on advertising on local newspapers and setting up their agreements with Sky (BSkyB U.K.). Finally the service was launched, with Sirasa TV and Shakthi TV broadcasting on Channel 816 of Sky Digital. After 3 months of free trial, Sirasa encrypted its signals and charged 10 sterling pounds to view the channel.

Unfortunately, Sirasa's programming consisted of the same programs being repeated three times a day. No proper market research was done. The entire system ran on a computer, without any professional studio in the U.K. itself.

Soon Sirasa began to suffer financially, and introduced more Tamil programming in a move to survive. It only made the remaining customers sick. Why should a Sinhala channel broadcast more Tamil than Sinhala programming, especially when there were plenty of other better Tamil channels on Sky Digital itself.

Sirasa stopped its service soon and cancelled all plans to extend out further to the world. By their "Sirasa International" project, Maharaja had only lost money and popularity. They never truly reached out to the Sinhala people in the U.K.

The Sinhala Channel which shows mostly Hindi programming
Sirasa is well known for dubbing Hindi programming in Sinhala and broadcasting it on their network. Why? Who knows. Probably to attract viewers. But only the younger generations were attracted. Older generations stayed back with the local tele-dramas, even though boring and all repeating the same storyline, instead of praising India for good entertainment. In case you have not noticed, most of the programming on Sirasa today is Hindi programs dubbed in Sinhala. In the afternoons you see

News First, but Biased too
Who wants biased news. Maharaja thinks that the people want it. Maharaja always puts in a pro-Enemy and anti-Government view whenever possible. This was very common in the past, but reduced significantly after the new president came to power. They expected the current opposition to win, but after the H.E. they were scared to attack him immediately. They are probably hatching up some new plan to fool the people in the next elections. Unfortunately, there still remains a group of people who praise Maharaja's News 1st and its biased reporting.

All the TV stations in Sri Lanka probably provide biased news reports, but Maharaja's are the worst.

Copy Cats and Bad Subtitlists
Whenever Sirasa broadcasts its own Sinhala programming which is not a news bulletin, it is sure to be a copy of an existing cable tv program. They think that they can fool people saying that it is their original Sirasa Nishpadanayak (Production). The people too fall for it.

E.g:- Just for Laughs: Gags on Pogo (cable tv) = Hina Hina on Sirasa TV
Exactly the same style of recording and playing tricks, with the trickster pointing at the camera at the end of each trick.

And also, "Channel One" MTV provides Sinhala subtitles on their English programming. This is a great inconvenience for people learning English, as they automatically read the subtitles rather than learn from the audio feed. The subtitles often tell a different story than what is said on the audio. I've compared the two and found large differences in what is said and what is written. This too is greatly misleading the unsuspecting public, except for those who can understand English well.

Superstars
This is probably Maharaja's greatest cheat in their history, which they got away with. They are even repeating it today for more and more money, in both Sinhala and Tamil.

First, Yes FM Superstar was held in 2004 in an attempt to copy the American Idol show. But the show gained little popularity. Immediately the next year, Maharaja launched a new Musical Reality show named Sirasa Superstar, copying exactly the same style from American Idol. The public were allowed to vote for their favourite singers, but the SMS charge was four times the normal charges. Another money gaining project by Maharaja.

Maharaja also added spicy rumors of murder attempts and controversy to raise reputation of the show, even going above the level of Americal Idol's reality. Finally, Ajith Bandara emerged as champion. I believe he was a good singer, but Sirasa kept him standing and sweating on stage for a good 45 minutes before giving him his price. Then they overloaded him with flowers so that he could hardly walk. His mother was in tears, most likely from seen all the trouble her son went through to end up waiting for a small price and a large shield It is possible that Sirasa rigged the results that he won, because some singers were better than him.

Today, singers like Ajith Bandara are used by Maharaja to earn truckloads of money form the young people who fall for such fake shows. The older generations once more turn a blind eye to it.

Poisoning the Young
MTV Networks are definitely bent more toward attracting the younger generations than showing some good quality, educative programming for everyone. For example, MTV removed Classic FM, a very good radio station with oldies, to launch the new Y FM (Youth FM, as expected). Y FM broadcasts mostly Sinhala rap from modern local artists. Poisoning the young. At least can't they broadcast something useful and valuable to the lives of the younger generation they attract?

Ignoring the Public Opinion
MTV Networks recently launched their Channel One MTV on a new frequency and separated it from Shakthi TV. Now the public in Colombo can watch Shakthi TV clearly but not MTV. That is because MTV's new transmitter is situated far from Colombo. All you could get is a heavily distorted image with no sound. And Maharaja still ignores the viewer's opinions that they should relocated the transmitter to a place within Colombo. They just tell people to buy a new antenna a turn it the opposite direction to which we turn our other tv antennas. What a waste of money. People are now missing their favourite English language shows, and are turning to Pay Television as the answer to their problems.

This problem still remains unsolved. Maharaja tells the people to call them on an hotline for instructions to get a clearer reception, but no one can even see the hotline at the bottom of the screen clearly!

IPTV
The latest step towards international fame and income is to launch an IPTV service. What is available in Sri Lanka for free viewing will be available to watch at a high price on the internet. Meanwhile, channels like Rupavahini can still be viewed for free over the internet. This promises to be another flop for MTV Networks.

Laughing at Pay Television
MTV really did so, many times during various interviews. But this was only a dream for them. Knowing that this dream would not come true, they began to reach out of Sri Lanka and slowly drop the local market.

Final Thoughts
I truly hope that someday soon the people will understand the danger of watching channels by Maharaja. It is real poison for the mind. They are real dogs and cheats, and also supporters of our enemies in many ways. They run for money, not for providing good entertainment.

I have now erased their channels off my television sets, and hope they will never hop aboard our pay television network. It is a shame that LBN has their channels, especially after they laughed at the concept of Pay Television.

Someday soon, MTV's English network will curl up and die with pay television becoming more common. Pay television will provide a complete English entertainment service, opposed to MTV's bits and pieces of English and what-nots. What will happen to the Sinhala and Tamil channels is yet to be seen...