An online campaign to demand cricket commentary in Kannada triggered 9,000 tweets on Thursday evening. Star Sports has already launched a Kannada channel, and it has gained good traction.
Thursday’s campaign was aimed at convincing SonySportsIndia to follow suit. An India-Australia series begins on the channel on Friday. The Twitter campaign was initiated by Kannada Grahaka Koota, a consumer group that champions the cause of Kannada. It was instrumental in fighting a legal battle and bringing dubbing to Kannada cinema. Ganesh Chetan, convenor, Kannada Grahakara Koota, says, “We want sports content to be available in Kannada, just like it is in Tamil and Telugu. We campaigned three years ago to convince Star Sports about it, and they launched a Kannada channel two years ago. We see its success, and we want a similar response from Sony Sports.”
Seeing the success, we wanted to do the same with Sony Sports.” Rapunzel (@malnadmiss) said listening to Kannada commentary evoked a ‘homely feeling’ of ‘two men in the house’ discussing cricket. Cricketer Dodda Ganesh was among those who tweeted in support of the campaign.