An increase has been seen both on this blog as well as the Dialog Facebook fan page with requests for Sirasa TV, Shakthi TV & Channel One MTV to be added to Dialog TV, claiming that Dialog TV will lose subscribers if they don't do so.
We believe that this is the work of a small group of individuals some with links to the Maharaja's and others who enjoy the Maharaja channels.
Regrettably it is the Maharaja's who initially disregarded cable television & made statements criticizing cable platforms and carried newspaper advertisements barring any platform from including the Maharaja channels. Now they have understood that they cannot survive unless they hop aboard these platforms & got themselves on board PEO TV. Now they are desperate to get on Dialog TV and are pressurizing Dialog to replace existing channels with their three channels.
We understand that there is a segment of the population that enjoys the three Maharaja channels and we respect them but replacing is not the way to get about doing this. If Dialog is contemplating adding the three Maharaja channels then they should do so by increasing capacity and not by removing existing channels.
In addition we have got information that a local Christian channel called Swarga TV is approaching Dialog TV and requesting that they be included on the platform. Swarga TV is a local Christian channel which is presently available on LBN at the moment & broadcasts content for 6 hours per day. As per the information received they are targeting the slot occupied by God TV.
Dialog should not touch any of the religious channels that are on their platform presently, which have been around on Dialog TV for quite a number of years and are very popular among the religions that they are associated with. So popular that some people purchased connections from Dialog TV just to view the channel associated with their religion. Dialog TV replaced God TV with EWTN a couple of years back on Christmas day and were forced to reintroduce it after a lapse of a few hours after being pressurized by God TV viewers in Sri Lanka.
Dialog TV will most definitely see a repetition of these events if God TV is indeed replaced by Swarga TV. In addition God TV is 24hr internationally recognized English language channel however Swarga TV is a local language channel which only consists of 6hrs of programming at present and not upto the standard of God TV broadcasts.
If Dialog TV is contemplating adding Swarga TV to its platform then it shouldn't be at the expense of God TV or any other channel for that matter. It should be done so after increasing the capacity of their platform or another way is to give them airtime on slot allocated for a local FTA channel which doesn't carry any programming during the morning hours since Swarga only operates for 6hrs per day and some local channels only commence transmission during the afternoon or evening hours.
The important thing to remember is that people pay Dialog TV to watch international channels and not locally produced channels. Furthermore channel replacements should be halted & any planned replacement should be postponed and they should be introduced as additional channels after Dialog increases capacity. Bad replacements have been carried out in the past among many for example is Warner TV replacing Zee Cafe which was a big mistake in hindsight.
Please keep updating us on the latest on Dialog TV as the days progress.
