The success of Sun TV led everyone to believe business acumen was in the DNA of the Maran brothers - Dayanidhi and Kalanithi, the sons of Murasoli Maran, and the grand-nephews of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M Karunanidhi.
In fact, its success was in no small measure due to the leg-up the TV business got from the political system. The idea was good: a television channel that would serve as a vehicle for party propaganda. Which is why Sun TV was given space in Anna Arivalayam, the headquarters of the DMK. The TV project was initially seen as an offshoot of the DMK newspaper, Murasoli, first edited by Karunanidhi but later handed over to his elder sister's son, (who came to be known as "Murasoli" Maran) a lawyer also engaged in journalism, cinema and politics like his maternal uncle.
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In 1967, Murasoli Maran became MP for south Madras in the Lok Sabha for the first time. While Karunanidhi stayed in the state legislature from 1957, Maran became his uncle's ears and eyes in Delhi. When Murasoli Maran died, his son Dayanidhi, who inherited his Lok Sabha seat, thought he had also inherited his father's political role. The difference, of course, was Murasoli Maran knew the party structure and workers personally. Let alone identifying workers individually, Dayanidhi often did not recognise or accord importance to ministers and party elders. This cost the Maran family a lot of political capital. But the family still had Karunanidhi's affection.
Kalanithi stayed out of politics and concentrated on business. He managed Sun TV that just grew and grew. When Sun TV was set up, about 20 per cent of the shares were held by one of Karunanidhi's wives. In 2006, when Karunanidhi became Chief Minister, the Marans advised that the channel should be listed on the stock market. Just before the IPO, they offered to buy out her 20 per cent. Karunanidhi thought nothing of it. The wife thought she'd made a killing. The children, when they came to know of the sale, thought otherwise.
That was the beginning of the rift between the Maran and Karunanidhi family, but the patriarch was still chief minister. Sun TV was useful to him; and having an uncle as chief minister meant the party machinery helped grow the business. The cable TV business is cut-throat both literally and figuratively and Sun benefitted from strong-arm tactics of party cadre. Today it has not just broadcasting (television and radio), movie production and distribution interests, but Kalanithi is also the owner of Indian Premier League cricket team, Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Kalanithi became a billionaire. But the distance between the Marans and the Karunanidhi family grew as the second generation in Karunanidhi's family began to become assertive. Along the way, the DMK lost both the state and Central governments. And lately business is slipping as well.
Business Standard reports that Sun TV dominates the Tamil Nadu market. However, in the other key Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam markets, its dominance has reduced significantly in recent years. In Karnataka, for instance, the company's lead is down from double a couple of years ago to 1.2 times. In Andhra Pradesh, it is number three, with a 30 per cent gap between it and the leader. In Kerala, the gap between the channel (number two in the market) and the market leader has increased. Sun TV has 21 channels in four languages - Kalanithi once confessed that he sometimes can't remember which ones.
In the last Lok Sabha election, Dayanidhi's school friends were surprised when he turned to them for election funding. The Chennai chatterati says he's got just a sliver of the family business as his share. Many Sun TV associates were Kalanithi's school and college friends. Few go round to his Boat Club Road place these days. It is not just the 20-feet wall around his house (which is reportedly a fortress) that is the deterrent. Come too close to Kalanithi and you might land in jail, Chennai wags say. Look at Sax, they say. Sax is Hansraj Saxena, a collegemate of Kalanithi from Loyola and among the founding members of Sun who was made COO of Sun Pictures and dropped by the company when he was arrested following a complaint by a film distributor who alleged intimidation. Of course, there is a two-year hiatus between the man making his complaint and the police taking action. The government changed in those two years.
And now there's SpiceJet. Originally ModiLuft, SpiceJet was bought by Kalanithi in 2010. Karunanidhi was Chief Minister. Now that Karunanidhi is out of the Centre and state, that business too is floundering. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) that currently has the civil aviation portfolio, may have been tapped for help. But even TDP sources are surprised why, when he has such a sizeable personal fortune, Kalanithi doesn't want to put his own money in the airline. After all, he and his wife are two of the most highly-paid CEOs in the country. This is one reason the comparison between Kingfisher, an airline that failed, and SpiceJet, which is sinking, are facetious. Vijay Mallya is a minus millionaire today because he tried to revive Kingfisher even at the cost of his personal fortune. By contrast, Kalanithi and his family have carefully hedged their family money - which came out of dexterously leveraging politics.
If the airline sinks, you can bet the Marans are going to say it was a political conspiracy: that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation need not have put the airline on "heightened surveillance", which is when the cookie began to crumble. This meant no bookings beyond 30 days so SpiceJet, which used to earn Rs 14 to Rs 15 crore a day from advance bookings, started reporting daily earnings in the region of Rs 50 lakh. It has been a downward spiral since.
What does this teach us? Political power is one thing. Business acumen is quite another. You can be sly. But that doesn't mean you are intelligent.