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Circa 1992 - An ambitious young man from Madras was eagerly sitting before a junior official of Zee TV. On the table was the young man's business proposal whereby he wanted permission to use the latter's transponder time when it was off air. As a `quid pro quo' he offered Zee TV, a share in the revenues that would be generated by his Tamil programmes. Remember those were the days when Zee TV, though paying the full day's transponder rent, aired its programmes only in the evenings. Instead of discussing the proposal, the Zee TV official started nit-picking and questioned as to why his organisation should offer its platform for a Tamil channel and not for a Marathi or a Gujarathi channel? Little did he realise that the young man sitting opposite, in six years time, would emerge as South India's Subash Chandra or Rupert Murdoch!

Well, the young man with a fire in his belly was none other than the Rs.250 crore plus Sun TV Network's brain Kalanithi Maran! Incidentally Kalanithi (34) was recently awarded the World Young Business Achiever Award - 1999, for Creativity, in Portugal. Earlier he was awarded the India Young Business Achiever Award - 1999. Recalling his first meeting with the Zee TV official he said, "At that time I didn't know anything about satellite channels. Nor did I have bags of money to be adventurous. The only option before me was to piggy back on another network". Undeterred by Zee TV's refusal and fired by his college day's ambition of heading his own outfit, Kalanithi set his sights on ATN channel. He convinced them about the need for a strong southern base to take on Zee TV and the immense business potential, given the fact that people of Tamil Nadu had to silently suffer DD's monopoly and its Hindi programmes after 8.30 p.m. everyday. Thus in April 1993, Sun TV emerged in the South.

"But signing up the deal was just the beginning of several problems," reminisced Kalanithi, sitting behind his paperless table. The first task before him was to educate the cable TV operators about dish antenna and the receipt of signals from a satellite. "The cable TV operators were then airing film-based programmes through VCRs or VCPs and in some places people were not even aware about cable TV," he added.

Dividing his 20 member staff into five teams, Kalanithi visited every nook and corner of the State to explain the satellite TV concept. The initial nine months were spent on setting up infrastructure and building up viewers with no major revenues accruing. Adding to his problems was ATN shifting the channel to different transponders affecting signal reception at the cable operators' level. Further, as the uplinking was from Moscow, incidents of tapes getting mixed up became common. Once the ground level operations got stabilised, Kalanithi sorted out the satellite problems by going in for a relatively new satellite RIMSAT and later to Intelsat.

That aside, being the son of the Union Industries Minister Murasoli Maran and the grandson of the State Chief Minister Dr. M. Karunanidhi, Kalanithi couldn't escape snide remarks about the channel's objectivity; its economic viability, so on an so forth. The fighting qualities of his grandpa and his father's meticulous planning imbibed by him since his childhood helped him to sort out the channel's initial hiccups than bothering about silly remarks. "Yes, I am proud to be born in this illustrious family. But believe it or not, never did I try to use my family name to further my interests," he said. He further added, "I always wanted to stand on my feet. I used to work in a restaurant to meet my expenses, while studying MBA in US!" That may be hard to believe for many. But those who had interacted with him during his college days vouch that Kalanithi never threw his family weight around. "Since his childhood days he is a quiet person and never flaunted his family connections. As a matter of fact, not many in Loyola College knew that he was Karunanidhi's grandson for a long time. He used to come to college by bus and later travelled by a 50cc moped," remarked Kalanithi's childhood friend, now Chief Manager, Sun TV's, K. Shanmugam.

However Kalanithi came under the limelight in 1985, when he along with other city college student leaders led a massive student rally demanding formation of the Madras University Students Union. The procession, when on the top of Anna fly over, was lathi-charged by the police injuring many students including Kalanithi. Finishing his B.Com and listening to Papa Maran's counsel, he joined MBA at the University of Scranton, USA. In the process, he disappointed many people who expected him to enter politics. "I became the first person in my family to go abroad for higher studies," he claimed with pride gleaming in his eyes behind the gold-framed spectacles. "Moreover politics is not my cup of tea. There are too many politicians in my family," he joked.

Much against his father's wish to continue his studies till he obtained a Doctorate degree, Kalanithi returned home in 1987 to realise his dream of setting up his own venture. As a first step towards that, he joined the family publication `Kungumam'. "I started as a circulation clerk and apprenticed in all the departments before taking overall charge," he recalled. Three years later, when cable TV was picking up, he decided to start a video newsmagazine - 'Poomalai'. Though piracy ate into his profits at home ground, the magazine generated good revenues overseas with Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils favouring it. "The overseas revenues subsidised domestic operations," he laughed. In the meantime, Kalanithi met Kaveri at a friend's place. Hit by Cupid's arrows, both exchanged `Poomalai' or garlands, in 1991.

Soon the Gulf war exposed Indians to satellite channels like CNN, and sensing good business potential for the Tamil channel, Kalanithi made his memorable visit to Zee TV office. With Sun TV weathering the initial problems and hitting the success route, Kalanithi, at two-year intervals, starting in 1994, launched Udaya TV (Kannada) Gemini TV (Telugu) and Surya TV (Malayalam) channels to cover the entire southern population. Today the flagship channel, Sun TV is the undisputed leader amongst all the Tamil channels with a market share of 80% and the other three channels are clocking impressive ad revenues and viewership. Said an official of a competing Tamil channel, "Kalanithi's business acumen is great. And it is almost impossible to reach Sun TV's stature even in the long run".

The secret of his success is nothing but ensuring the quality of the programmes telecast by his channel. "He has an unsatiable thirst to excel with his programmes and employing the latest technology," said an industry watcher. In fact, many of the current programme formats of rival Tamil channels were pioneered by Sun TV. To cite one instance, it was Kalanithi who brought the giants of the big screen to the small screen to give quality programmes to his viewers. Opines Radha Krishnaswamy, Abinaya Creations, associated with Sun TV for the past four years, "For Kalanithi, programme quality and viewers response rank uppermost. He never minces words while giving his views about a programme". Nevertheless he is considerate towards programme producers, as he genuinely believes that no one associated with his channel should incur a loss, she added.

"I am not an introvert or extrovert. I am just an ordinary person," was how he described himself. But officials of Sun TV have a different estimation of him. "He is a hands-on-person, who leads from the front," said his Personal Secretary Nafesa. To support that she recalled an instance when Kalanithi sat along with the other staff on a pile of dust, while setting up the channel's library. According to her, Kalanithi is a stickler to time and hardly would have cancelled ten appointments in the past six years due to unforeseen emergencies. However, the one fault which others find in Kalanithi is his short temper. "But that is harmless and the anger vanishes very fast," said an official.

"At home he is a quiet and caring person," remarked Kaveri about her husband. Further she continued, " He is a level headed person and fame doesn't get into his head". Ask her what she likes and dislikes in Kalanithi she would respond with, "His dedication towards his business". Despite his busy schedules, Kalanithi sees to it that his family doesn't miss him much. "Though I travel a lot, I make it a point to spend the weekends with my family which apart from Kaveri includes my daughter Kavya who is studying in third standard," he remarked.

Meanwhile, Kalanithi is now busy giving finishing touches for a 24 hours news channel to be launched shortly. Estimates put the ad-spend on regional news channels at Rs.100 crore. The news channel will be followed with a direct-to-home (DTH) service in US. "After that we will be launching in quick succession four more specialised sister channels," he added. In addition on the drawing board are his plans to enter FM broadcasting and may be a Bengali TV channel!

This Leo, who was very open in his responses, suddenly became cagey when asked about the quantum of outlay for the new ventures. "Needed investment will be made," was all that he would volunteer as a reply.

Venkatachari Jagannathan

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