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!!!!
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