Unforeseen risk factor that has hit Sun TV

Venkatachari Jagannath
16 May 2007

"Members of our chairman''s family have been active in Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (the "DMK"), a dominant political party in Tamil Nadu. Although the company is non- partisan, there is no assurance that it will not be perceived as having political allegiance, and there is no assurance that such perception will not have adverse effects on our business." — One of the risk factors listed by Sun TV Network Limited, earlier Sun TV Limited, in its initial public offering prospectus.

At that time neither the company nor anybody else visualised chairman Kalanidhi Maran and his brother Dayanidhi Maran falling foul with the DMK supremo and chief minister Dr M Karunanidhi or even his family members.

Incidentally Karunanidhi is the grand uncle of Kalanidhi and Dayanidhi who are sons of the late DMK leader and union minister Murasoli Maran.

But in a sudden turn of events the mercurial union minister Dayanidhi lost his post in the union cabinet. Despite being a first time member of Parliament Dayanidhi was inducted into the Congress led ministry at the centre in 2004 as a union cabinet minister for communications and information technology.

With the change in family equations — Karunanidhi and his family members turning against the Maran brothers — the question uppermost in the minds of business associates concerns its impact on the fortunes of the listed company Sun TV Network Limited that owns a clutch of TV channels (four Tamil channels: Sun TV, KTV, Sun News, Chutti TV and Sun Music; two Malayalam channels: Surya TV and Kiran TV; five Telugu channels: Gemini TV, Teja TV, Gemini News, Gemini Music and Gemini Cable Vision and: four Kannada channels: Udaya TV, Udaya Movies, Udaya Varthegalu and Udaya TV II) along with a few FM radio stations.

A major portion of the network''s infrastructure is based in Chennai. In addition the group''s Sun Cable Vision is the largest multi system operator in Tamil Nadu.