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Sun TV launched in U.K.

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON AUG 18 . Tamil-speaking people in the U.K. and Europe now have a television channel in their own language, with the launch of Sun TV here on Sunday, making it the only Indian regional broadcaster to telecast ``live'' internationally, according to Kalanithi Maran, its chairman and managing director.

He said the channel would also be available to viewers in West Asia, and there were plans to start a similar arrangement for South Africa. ``Today's launch puts us firmly on the world's television map from the U.S., U.K. and Europe to West Asia, the Far East and Australia,'' he said.

The launch was done in some style, with a select gathering, which included Sri Lanka's minister for Hindu religious affairs, Thiyagarajh Maheswaran, and the British Tory MP, Michael Portillo, invited to a cruise on the Thames.

A lamp was lit as the first of the ``live'' images from back home started to beam into British and European homes. Mr. Portillo was apparently so impressed that he expressed his wish to learn Tamil.

Mr. Maran said the decision to ``bring'' Sun TV to these shores was prompted by the ``tremendous response'' to an earlier arrangement under which its taped programmes were shown through Deepam TV. ``So, in a sense, we already had a presence here with about 18,000 subscribers here and in Europe, but people wanted live news and other programmes as they happened.''

The channel will be free-to-air for a month, and after that viewers would have to subscribe to it. There would also be a Malayalam component supplied by the Surya TV, a part of the Sun TV network. ``We hope to treble the number of our viewers in these parts over the next three months,'' Mr. Maran said.

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