About tamil channels and how sun tv succeded

[suryan]

Dont mistake ME ,,,,This thread is full of Sun Network supporters , u guys are thinking as if Sun is the best in the world .. ..


dear ppl have discussed about the strength of other channels aswell here

 

[harishravi86]

Dear Kevin please read about what I have written abt Vijay as well...The point is Sun is like 8 times bigger than all the channels put together...U love it or hate it you just can't ignore...Don't worry...I will soon write about monopoly and antitrust of sun network as well...Will write how they used the arm twisting route as well...Thanks for reminding me for that

 

[Kevin]

Dear Kevin please read about what I have written abt Vijay as well...The point is Sun is like 8 times bigger than all the channels put together...U love it or hate it you just can't ignore...Don't worry...I will soon write about monopoly and antitrust of sun network as well...Will write how they used the arm twisting route as well...Thanks for reminding me for that

I am waiting for it ..

 

[suryan]

Dear Kevin please read about what I have written abt Vijay as well...The point is Sun is like 8 times bigger than all the channels put together...U love it or hate it you just can't ignore...Don't worry...I will soon write about monopoly and antitrust of sun network as well...Will write how they used the arm twisting route as well...Thanks for reminding me for that


waiting ...... harish

 

[harishravi86]

When I thik about monopoly and antitrust I remember Microsoft and the way they paid $700 mn for antitrust and abusing the monopolistic status...Well there are several monopolies in India and nothing can be done about it....ok lets come to the point how the Maran's monopolised the cable tv market.. First we have to remember how Sun started..Kalanidhi maran started a video library shop called poongothu in porur...He saw that there was cable satellite revolution happening with Zee and Star spreading across India..South India was always a different market and its not easy for any north Indian to penetrate here unless he understands the demographics of Tamil nadu...Maran sensed this as an oppurtunity and met Subash chandra of the Essel group..Zee did not agree to his idea...Great Enterpernaurs are never accepted..It happened to NRN when he was not selected by wipro or he rejected GE taking Infosys for $25 million in 1991 which was 5-6 times its valuation that time...Maran decided to start his own channel....Initially he started a three hour channel from 2-5 and was called as Sun movies..that was the reason why its caption says Sun tvyin Tamil maalai...Interstingly money was not a shortage as it came from the DMK party fund and HCl computers popular person and many NRIs from Singapore and Malaysia....He is now with Kalaignar tv...Maran gave 20% shares to Dayalu Ammal(karuna's wife and murasoli maran's sister)...Now in 1993 there was a cable tv revolution....Raj tv was started by seeing sun tv after all Raj was having its own movie database Raj video vision...Initially Dish antenna was required to watch cable television which costed around 18000...Now if one had dish antenna it would be sufficient for people around 500 m that place can easily watch all the channels with good quality...DMK members took the MSO contracts and Sun came with a blue logo...and you can see that in Oncemore film...Sun for three years gave quality content with night movies with one flavour per week...Thigil varam,Action varam,Vaarisugal vaaram....Programs like pattukku pattu,arattai arangam,neengal ketta paadal,Pepsi ungal choice were new to people who were fed up with lack of programs in DD...DD had just 4-6 popular programmes...One was oliyum oliyum,Friday night movie,Sunday evening movie,Junoon and vizhuthugal...People were waiting for something new and sun gave it...So Sun came up purely because of DD which was terribly mismanaged...Seeing the mammoth success of Sun Jayalalitha started her own tv called JJtv...During that time JJ had everything in her name..She ran government bus in her name as JJTC....The reason why 1991-1996 rule was seen as a bad rule is because she simply ignored the media....1989-1991 was as corruptive as the JJ rule..The difference was media started to expose things...In my opinion JJ should have been caught red handed in atleast in 20 cases had she not panicked in late 95's...The marriage she did for her valarpu magan Sudhagaran with Sivaji Ganesan family member created troubles...All happened because she underestimated media...In 1996 election Rajini was talking all day on the election eve in Sun tv and Dmk won that election and there started the monopoly market...Cable tv spread to nook and corners of tamil nadu with dmk's approval...Big Maran in central cabinet helped against all problems...There was nothing against them and they just bought all the movies released without any problems..Which is where Raj tv started to lose the battle..There was vijay tv as well but it had the same problem as it has today..Lack of content....It changed max bo of hands..From vijay mallya to Golden Eagle commubication the to star...It seriously did not use the early advantage..By the end of 1996 Sun had enough clout and they got better with every passing day simply because of the quality of programs...But on the other side they easily stopped Raj and Vijay to offer good programs...JJTV was closed because of the case on JJ...The mistake that DMK did was nothing new in politics...They concentrated too much on finishing off JJ once for all by foisting cases on her....And JJ simply bounced back in 1998 election simply because of DMK's atrotious approach towards other parth and they terribly underestimated JJ and overestimated SUN TV....They lost the 1998 election because of the Bomb blasts,mega alliance formed by the opposition party...By the end of 1998 SCV was in operation full fledged and threatened cable operators who did not join them...Cable operators who did not join SUN were threatened by local DMK cadres and their wires were cut by them...And what happens in madurai happened to cable operators who did not tow the SUN TV led SCV line..Cable operators simply surrendered because of the official and party machinery..By the end of 2000 SUN TV was the only media channel in TN and others were just for sake media...The armtwisting activity by the official machinery was done in open light and nothing could be done against it because no one had enough voice to oppose it....Their quality of programs was always good...But inorder to increase the quantity they used techniques which are against the law of any land....But one should remember no company can be successful by being 100% truthful...We have RIL doing the same thing by threatening the opponents...We have Infosys cheating clients in the name of Quality but all of them had something special that made clients or people to stay invested with them....You have to be ruthless to be successful in your business to win and thats what history has said to us as Ajith says in Billa...The people who towed SCV line were financially secured and those who went against it just disappeared...many of us don't know there is an MSO Hathway which is a mnc WHICH could not even keep its foot in the market because SCV was unofficially the monoploy like the railways....Murasoli Maran became one of the Asia's richest man thanks to the phenemenol growth of Sun TV....As I said Sun was giving good programs quality wise the problem was their volume expansion which is where they used all kinds of machinery to stop others....karuna's arrest and Dayanidhi maran screaming kola pandrangale turned the fortunes of Sun t v towrds higher level...The role played by them during the Government employees was phenemenol and that made it go up one more level....In 2004 when there was election they started to realize their real power.... One may ask how can a TV channel influence voters...You see elections voting are just creating perceptions in the minds of people which is done by the fourth estate of the media...The media created wrong impression on JJ ever since she tried to arrest The Hindu editor which was height of insanity...And Sun just realized this opportunity and just slaughtered the image of Jaya and poor monsoon,electric bill rise,cut of free farmer power went against jaya....Add to this the mega alliance this side with karuna helped him as well...But post 2004 she realized that she is losing her image and reverted all decisions she took from 2001-2004 and started to function in the same way as karuna did....Now SUN TV was in a fix.....They did not have enough issues to create a negative perception....They had 12 ministers in the cabinet and they could not do much without state governments support...And encounter of veerappan,arrest of jeyendrar,tsunami,2005 rain havoc were some issues and jaya got lots of money from central government and gave it to all people(not to the affected) which helped her..Add to it she regained her lost image and infact pulled vaiko,sarathkumar,Visu from opposition pack.....On April 7 on a poll conducted by The Hindu CNN IBN showed that Jaya was slight leading slightly despite the mammoth alliance...Karuna gave a Election promise which turned the election..Giving election manifesto is different and takeing that to people is different...This is where Sun TV played a major role in turning around the tables...They took the manifesto to each and every household and unlike past elections where DMK or ADMK which would sweep elections could not do that because of the image she had built as chief minister in the last two years of her rule...Now coming back to monopoly its not right for a media to be both in print and electonic to be the leader...Unfortunately there is no rule to stop it in India....Being the leader in electronic media and using it to attain leadership in print media is objectionable and there should be rules to stop it....Hope it comes in the future.... But in a democracy everything is By the people unfortunately the people is exploited with their ignorance and this is there in anyy democracy which is what business is all about.... All the above opinions are purely mine...And I am sure that I did not offend anyone....Suggesstions welcome...More to come

 

[Kevin]

Thanks for ur infos , expecting more from u ..

 

[suryan]

few corrections harish Maran started poomalai video magazine, not poongothu. it was a video magazine it had good response abroad but had to close down becoz of piracy. When zee started they had extra transponder space and maran asked them to rent the transponder for 3 hrs everyday they can start the channel. subash chandra refused and maran had a bitter experience with zee tv. thats why when zee started in tamil sun tv took revenge on them and zee tv closed its tamil channels. After Zee Refused Maran joined hands with ATN Tv, they offered transponder space for 3 hours everyday. after the sucess of the channel sun tv bought their own transponder space and they were beaming the channels from manila. programs were recorded in chennai and the cassetes sent to singapore through flight and from there transfered to manila.. between sun tv was started as sun tv's tamilmaalai not sun movies. sun movies was a channel which maran started along with sun music during 1996 1997 but stopped soon with lack of content and not much viewership. when the cable tv market got more reach, they started sun movies back as K TV and SCV channel was rebranded as sun music.About monopoly in media, it is everywere. In Andhra Ramojirao owns the largest circulated news paper Eenadu, ETV Channels, Movie studios. Kerala - Malayala Manorama, North Subash chandra - Owning - Zee, Siti cable - Dish Dth, DNA NewspaperStar - Star Channels, Star Den, Hathway, Tata Sky Internationally Rupert mudorch - Contorlling varios tv channels, Newspapers, Cable companies Movie Studios. even if law comes there for breaking monopoly it doesnt help much to stop the monopoly people always find the alternative route and loop holes

 

[par]

Around 95-96 Vivek was hosting 'Philips Super 10' in Sun. I vaguely remember it was same like 'Lollu Sabha'. Or am I just imagining?

 

[harishravi86]

Yes he was doing Super 10 the prelude for Lollu sabha shows....He did till 2001 I guess..

 

[suryan]

Around 95-96 Vivek was hosting 'Philips Super 10' in Sun.
I vaguely remember it was same like 'Lollu Sabha'. Or am I just imagining?


yes it was same like lollu sabha and before lollu sabha it was sun tv super ten which started spoofing movies and making comedy, after vivek ygee mahendra did super ten for a year or two and then aarthi and ganesh team.

Some of the programs were best known associated with the sponsors brand name, like

ungal choice - pepsi ungal choice
super ten - philips super ten.
Jodi Porutham - Hamam Jodi Porutham
Neengal Keta Paadal - Nescafe Sunrise Neengal Keta Paadal


Whenever some popular person like a anchor/ producer leaves sun tv other people make a big sound saying thats the end of sun tv and it will lose viewership. Many People who were very popular in Sun Tv Who went to other channels never able to hold the same glory they had while working with sun tv.

Some of the Popular Anchors who worked with sun left to other channels

1. Rabi bernard - Famous for his political interviews, left to vijay tv he did do some good programs with vijay tv like puthira puthinama, neruku ner, then started nila tv got it closed down, then moved to jaya tv, now makes some political programs for jaya tv.

2. Swarnamaalya - Hosted Ilamai Puthumai, Left to vijay tv, got married ---- got divorced -- acted in few movies not much popular now.

3. Umapadmanaban - News reader, Vanakam Thamizhagam, Moved to vijay tv Now comes in tv once a while

4. Aanandhageethan - Famous for his vaarthai vilayatu program, was not making programs for long and now making some program in makkal tv.

5. Reko - Jodi Porutham Anchor

6. Pepsi Uma - One of the Best anchor and hosted ungal choice for almost 15 yrs in sun tv, was forced to move to kalaingar tv. kalaingar tv MD Sharad kumar tried to use her and uma left kalaingar. She gave a interview in vikatan feeling sorry for leaving sun tv and rememberd how much kalanithi maran helped her in past and gave freedom in making programs. now uma is not seen in any tv channels. wish Maran bring her back to sun tv and as her to host good programs with her.

7. Ramesh prabha - Famous for his paatuku paatu program and vanakam thamizgam, left to kalaingar tv and making vidiyale vaa and paatuku paatu in kalaingar tv.


Popular Producers

1. K.Balachander - Once he occupied almost all the primetime slots in sun tv, famous for his kb chinnathirai, marmadesam and more. Broke off with sun tv and moved to raj tv started making serials for them, and made serials for vijay tv and jaya tv also, but he couldnt create the same magic he did in sun tv with other channels. Kb Produced the first superhit Daily Tamil serial in Sun Tv - Raguvamsam and superhit thriller serial - marmadesam.

2. Kutty Padmini with her husband prabhu n'epal- Made Good serials in sun tv, after kb left sun tv she filled the wednesday slot thriller with her thriller serials. she also did a super hit daily serial krishnadaasi - first serial for nalini and gemini ganesan. kutty padmini and prabhu n'epal left sun tv later and started making serials for other channels, now kutty padmini seams to back in sun tv with her kalasam serial.

3. A.V.M - They made lot of serials with sun tv, infact they made a fortune with the serials telecasted in sun tv, avm was not producing movies and to keep its studios going and give jobs to its workers tv serials produced for sun tv helped. AVM had a good relationship with sun for long, now avm moved to kalaingar tv.