Kalanithi Maran: Media Baron of India

Kalanithi Maran is a media baron in India because of his position as the Sun Group’s managing director as well as his ownership of several companies engaged in the print and broadcast productions, even a movie production house. He owns newspapers and weeklies, television channels and FM radio stations, and DTH services across India, a feat that makes him among the country’s most influential persons. He has also owned a major share in Spice Jet, an Indian airline, from 2010 to 2015.

To name a few of the businesses that he owns:

• Sun Network, which owns and operates several television channels in South India
• Sun Direct DTH, which offers direct-to-home broadcasting services
• Red FM, a multi-lingual radio
• Suryan FM, a Tamil radio
• Sun 18, a company engaged in the distribution of its channels via DTH, cable, IPTV, MMDSk, and HITS
• Sun Pictures, a movie production house that specializes in Tamil films
• Sun Cable Vision and Sumangli Cable, which are cable television distribution companies
• Tamil Murasi, a company that produces Tamil evening newspapers
• Dinakaran, a daily newspaper in the Tamil language
• Kunkumam, Vannathirai, Muthaaram, Kunguma Chimizh, which are Tamil magazines
• Sunrisers Hyderabad, an IPL team

Maran started his media career with Poomaalai, a monthly video news magazine in the Tamil language in 1990 but it ceased operations by 1992. Being the determined person that he was, Maran started another company through a US$86,000 bank loan, Sun TV, on April 1993. By April 1996, SUN TV was already listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, which resulted in his new status as a billionaire.

By 2010, he was among India’s richest men with an estimated US$4 billion net worth as well as the highest paid businessman in the country. For the period 2011-2012, he earned US$9.3 million – the second-highest paid Indian executive behind MP Naveen Jindal.

For his achievements, he has been awarded the Young Businessman Awards from Ernst & Young and CNBC. He is also the Television King of Southern India according to Forbes magazine.