KD brothers -2

The way by which Dhayanidhi Maran became the minister of Communication and Information Technology, is by itself a story. His father Murasoli Maran was the then Minister for Industry and the speech he gave about the poorly developed countries in the world, made us all proud. Atleast for sentimental reasons Dhayanidhi Maran should have taken this post, but he didn't. Before becoming the minister, he was the managing director of Sun tv. For a TV channel to function, they were dependent on Spectrum and the job of allocating the Spectrum was done by Communication and IT ministry, using which Sun Tv prevented the growth of other competing TV channels.

An example. Jaya Tv wanted to bring forth a 24/7 news channel and didn't want to get a new Spectrum for this. They wanted to strengthen the existing Spectrum, for which they applied in May 2004 and this application was made pending for 2 years by Dhayanidhi Maran. Jaya Tv and Kairali Tv(on similar grounds) filed a case in the court.

Another important issue is about TATA Sky. Tata Sky was planning to broadcast the television channels directly to the houses. Dhayanidhi was heading the ministry that was supposed to grant permission for the same, and he started delaying it.

During the time when he was in post, the television channels could be seen in cell phones, so they were planning for the Convergence of both the Spectrum.

Dhayanidhi creates new laws like these, so that Kalanidhi can make use of them. The cost towards long distance calling was about 100 crores, he made it as cheap as 2.5 crores, when a lot of companies were competing to to this trade. He made sure a single wire is used for both Internet and telephone. He did this because through SCV, Sun Tv can provide this facility to people.

They applied for the license of 84 FM and they were granted 67. Now, due to a new law, they have 46 with them and sold the rest. Even though big industrialists like Ambani, Tata, Birla, Bajaj, etc., have to bribe to get their work done, these people, they are the government, they are the industrialists, they give licenses and they buy them all too.

Most of us don't know that the KD brothers tried getting shares from Hindu Newspaper after they got a lot of income from Sun TV shares, but they failed. Including Sun TV, they have about 20 other channels in all of South Indian languages. Their success was mainly because of their cruel business techniques.

Shortly after they bought Dhinakaran, they not only changed the black-n-white format into colour, but also reduced the price to Re.1, when all other Tamil dailies were sold at Rs.3. Now because of this the circulation increased and within a short span, they increased the price to Rs.2. Dhinakaran is the No.2 selling tamil daily now. Similarly, they started an evening Tamil newspaper called Tamil Murasu. The advertisers gave a lot of things for free, and these people sold it with the paper for free too, thus increasing their customers. They also started some weekly magazines like Kungumam.

After they ventured into film production, it was evident that these brothers are capable to do any damn thing for their business. Their first production venture was "Kadhalil Vizhundhen". It was a very average grosser, but Sun TV portrayed it as No1 for a lot of weeks in their ratings.

For the Rajnikanth Staring movie Endhiran(Robot), they made it like a revolution, but it was a loss to some distributors and since dailies like Deccan chronicle and Dhinamani published it, they were threatened and cases were filed.

They also ventured into airlines business. By purchasing a majority of the "Spicejet" shares, they now call themselves the owner of Spicejet.

After there was a split in the family due to the Dinakaran issue, Kalaignar TV was started. A lot of Sun Tv employees moved to Kalaignar TV, which shows how bad Sun TV was paying them.

Since Karunanidhi was in power, Hansraj Saxena, an immediate assistant to Kalanidhi, was involved in a lot of bad incidents, including a reputed hotel and the police didn't even take any action.

These guys are planning to venture into retail business like Reliance Fresh as well. Beware!

The protest done by Anna Hazare didn't find even a little space in Sunt Tv. Except in Sunt Tv, it was a major news in all other TV channels, from which it is evident how corrupt they are. During that time, they were telecasting Vadivelu's 3rd rated speech, as if it was very important.

SCV is the main reason the KD brothers are enjoying this kind of monopoly. The other channels in tamilnadu are allocated prime band only if they pay 5 crores.

All of us must be so glad that AIADMK is in power now. Lets see what happens in their term. But come what may, don't forget what happened in the past in the DMK regime.

Be informed, be wise!!!!

KD brothers of Tamilnadu/India - Part 1

All of us(Indians) are aware that M.Karunaanidhi, the current chief minister of Tamilnadu is one of the biggest evil forces in the country, but even more evil are the sons of Murasoli Maran, Kalanidhi and Dhayaanidhi Maran.

Is Karunaanidhi so benevolent to forget the brothers who grew their so-called kingdom because of him, calling his son a "rowdy" on a television channel? No way. The truth is that Karunaadhi was scared. Karunaanidhi, who gathered the cabinet when there was a tiff between him and the brothers and decided to ask Dhayaanidhi Maran to resifn from his post as a minister, failed to do the same when he chose to unite with thw brothers. When asked about the spectrum scam, he brushed it aside saying it was all of the past.

After this election, Karunaanidhi will be exhausted(old age) and those who tried to please him by organizing various functions are going to leave his side. His dear Jaffer Sate has already lost power. The implications, Karunaanidhi is no more going to be a threat, but the brothers who have seen a huge growth will.

Who is Kalanidhi Maaran? He studied in Don Bosco school in Chennai, under-grad at Loyola College and did MBA at the US. After returning to India, he worked for a brief period at "Kungumam".

India Today, then started a new video journal called "News Track". He wanted to do something similar to it and hence started "Poomalai", which was a video cassette that came twice a month. Karunaanidhi's force was acting behind this. Since it didn't have share-holders like News Track, all the video stores in Chennai were threatened to buy atleast 10 cassettes. Cases were filed on those who failed to buy, saying they sold "blue-film" cassettes.

Once they were financially sound, "Sun Tv" was started in 1993. In those times transponders were not as cheap as they are today. These days with one crore rupees, one could start a TV channel. There was a relative of Brunei Sultan who lived in Chennai and owned a transponder. Kalanidhi befriended him and received his transponder for free.

The reason why Sun Tv became very popular soon after its inception was that, not many TV channels were available then. Also, there was no compromise on the quality of the programmes. There were no tele-shopping or fake-doctors' shows. Until 1996, since there was a lot of corruption during Jayalalitha's reign, people wanted an opposition channel that would reveal a lot of insider news from the ruling party, which Sun Tv did very promptly. Rabi Bernard, who is with Jaya Tv now, was with Sun Tv then. More than a couple of important news about the ruling party used to be telecasted.

September 7, 1995 saw the wedding of Jayalalitha's foster son Sudhakaran with great pomp and show and the news in Sun Tv had great reception from the viewers, as it included details like stealing current from the transformers, threatening officers, etc. The way in which Jayalalitha ana Sasikala clad in silk clothes and lots of gold jewelry walked during the weddinng ceremony, with the police officer Walter Devaram as a security for them and lots of others with guns, was shot from the top on Malar Hospital building by Sun Tv camera man, Kannan.

Kannan was arrested by DGP Vijayakumar, and Sun Tv made a big issue of it by taking it up with the then Prime Minister Shankar Dayal Sharma and the internal affairs minister S.P. Chavan.

After 1996, Sun Tv became very powerful. They started threatening film actors and actresses to star in their serials, and private ad agencies to create ads for them. They had their office at Arivaalayam, but eventually occupied the whole Arivaalayam by forcing the MLA Gandhi to vacate.

Another major company of theirs was Sumangali Cable Vision(SCV) at Chennai first. Their competitor was another cable operator called "Hathway" from Mumbai. After 2006, due to Karunadhi's power, they forced Hathway out of business in Tamilnadu.

By this period, Dhayanidhi Maran became the minister for Communication and Information Technology and Sun Tv started using his powers to expand their cable business empire. Raj Tv(Visa in Telugu) and Vijay Tv were known to telecast un-biased news then, so Dhayanidhi made sure that their right to news telecast was revoked. It is to be noted that Vijay Tv doesn't telecast news till date.

...to be continued...