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Kalanithi Maran was born on 1964 is an Indian media baron who is the chairman and managing director of Sun Group, which was the most profitable television network in Asia. He studied at Don Bosco, Egmore, Chennai, and completed his graduation from Loyola College, Chennai. In college, he was the student's union chairman and stood up for many causes. He went on to pursue a MBA degree from University of Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA.
Kalanithi started his journey as a circulation clerk in Sumangli publication. In the late 1980’s, he worked for a weekly Tamil magazine, Kunkumam. He started a monthly video news magazine (VHS), Poomalai in 1990, circulated it among the Tamils in India and abroad, but it's publication was stopped in 1992 due to piracy.
In 1998, India liberalized satellite broadcast industry. Sun network was among the first to procure such a license, and set up benchmarks for all.
SUN GROUPApril 14, 1993 Maran founded the Sun Network. It is a media based company, and today stands as Asia's most profitable media company, with the largest TV network. It is based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, part of Kal Media Services, Sun group. Sun TV continues to be its flagship channel, which was first, fully owned private Tamil channel in India, at the time of its emergence.
Initially, it had 3 hours of Tamil programs in ATN channel under Sun TV's brand name. Gradually, the network expanded to 24 hours television channel in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Bengali languages. Today, the reason attributed for Sun TV's dominant share in market is attributed to Maran's hold over the distribution channels in south. Today Sun Network reaches across 95 million people in India and 27 countries abroad, including US, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, and Australia. Sun TV was listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange on April 2004, on raising $ 133 million.
AWARDS and RECOGNITIONS
With a net worth of US $ 4 billion, Forbes named Maran amongst India's 20 richest people.
Today, as the Founder Chairman and Managing Director of Sun Networks, he owns magazines, newspapers, television channels, DTH services and FM radio stations in India.
In June 2010, he entered into the field of aviation and acquired low-cost airline Spice Jet.
He won the “Young Businessman” award from CNBC, Ernst and young. Forbes magazine named him “The Television King of South India.”
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