DMK's rising sun sets on Sun TV

ECLIPSING THE SUN: Sun TV has toned down its rhetoric against DMK.

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Chennai: Former IT and Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran had become someone who DMK supremo M Karunanidhi had come to trust immensely.

Maran was DMK’s points-man in New Delhi and a very successful union minister, before which he was also the executive director of the Sun TV group.

And with Maran brothers - Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi - using the powerful network to stake their claim in the succession battle in the DMK, experts say DMK could go after Sun TV now.

"They are in for some real hard times because if the government really wants to trouble a TV channel they can do it in several ways," says political analyst Cho Ramaswamy.

For instance, the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Monday threatened to pass a privilege motion against Sun TV-owned newspaper for an alleged defamatory article it had printed on May 10.

Experts say other obvious ways may be withdrawing.

Government advertisements given to the Sun TV network on very favourable terms and its powerful cable distribution business may no longer count on the state machinery .

The Sun network has grown from being a single channel to a Rs 400-crore network in the last 10 years. Experts say it’s this size that will see the network get through its difficult times.

"My own sense is that the empire has reached a critical size and it is not going to disappear in a day," says Chairman of Media Development Foundation Sashi Kumar.

But with the party set to expel Dayanidhi Maran, Sun TV network has already toned down its rhetoric against the DMK.

But for the Sun TV, a repeat the kind of phenomenal growth its had in the last 10 years will become difficult with DMK no more as patron.