Will the SUN rise again?

There was a time once when people used to determine when their kids should stop playing and start doing their homeworks just by looking at the TV.

“No mom, it isn't 8 yet. Give me 5 more minutes.”

“Son, you better come and start your lessons. The news has begun.”

That was the power of SUN TV. The impact SUN TV news had on Tamil people was tremendous. This was a long time ago(even before the big split).

It was the period when only English and Hindi channels were considered to have the best picture quality. It was the period when channel timings would question the accuracy of your watch. Be it your Rolex or Rado. It was the period when PEPSI dominated Coke in the state. It was the period when SUN TV had monopoly over the cable tv industry of Tamil Nadu.

The SUN TV has many laurels to its name. Its viewership base was unmatched. The TRPs its shows generated were awesome And to top it all, it had great picture quality, its most important USP. And being a politically inclined channel (in its heydays), it had no dearth of controversies either. One would see Kalaignar Karunanidhi for all the right reasons during his tenure in power, then Jayalalitha for all the wrong reasons if it was her tenure. It was the media power of the SUN Network that made the public revolt against Jayalalitha after search operation at her residence revealed her huge collection of clothes and apparel. It was the same media power that created public outcry when Karunanidhi was dragged to prison from his residence at midnight.

It wouldn't be wrong to say SUN TV and the DMK shared a mutual symbiotic relationship. SUN TV played a significant role in aiding the DMKs fight against its opposition and DMK played a significant part in increasing SUNs popularity. Who would have imagined in their wildest dreams that such an alliance would fall apart? As it had to be, the split was ugly and violent even paving way for a minor cabinet reshuffle.

Has the SUN network gained anything post the split? Yes, it definitely has. It has gained CREDIBILITY, the one factor SUN TV lacked right from its birth. Being tagged a political channel and to survive a long haul with the same is a miraculous feat. DMK, over the years, has won and lost elections. But SUN TV has remained the peoples favourite during these times. That is a big accomplishment. Shedding its pro-DMK tag, the SUN Network has done immensely well in their fightback post the split. It will take some time before they regain the things they lost during the split up.

Waiting for the SUN to rise again.

Mumbai Divided

"You must know to differentiate between the Indians and the terrorists. We both hate different groups of people. The terrorists hate the Americans. The Indians hate each other." joked Russell Peters in one of his stand ups to a multi ethnic audience who were laughing their heads off.

The grim reality of a great nation hidden (read unhidden) in his verses. It is evident from the Mumbai scenario that we are not racist, but are regionalist. Regionalist to the core that we beat up peoples of other region who come to our region to make a living.

Many would sideline these incidents as dramas of political parties to derive political mileage. If that's the case, how would one explain the confidence these politicians have on the society to acknowledge their drama. They wont be giving it if we refuse taking it. It's the society that demands these kind of dramas from them.t's the society that gives birth to these kind of politics and politicians. Then wouldn't it be the society to blame?

It is obvious that there is a small sense of hatred towards these so called IMMIGRANTS for all the wrong reasons. They feel that these immigrants steal their jobs, jeopardize their culture and are misleading their community towards destruction. Well think again. Mumbai is the financial capital of the nation and haven't these immigrants played a part in it? Imagine a Dalal street without Marwaris and Gujaratis. Speaking of Gujaratis, has anyone forgot the 1986 Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries attended by more than 35000 people at Cross Maidan? They are people who made the erstwhile Bombay to the present Mumbai.

Why Navanirman if all you want is to deconstruct Mumbai to be like in the puranas? When will Mumbai truly be “Aamchi Mumbai”?

BigAdda gives in

Take a look at the picture beside. I call it the "Market Power of Google". The picture is a web page of Zapak.com which happens to be a full-service software gaming entertainment company and a part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), flaunting Google's ad serving program, AdSense.

About ADAG

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group is among India's top three private sector business houses, with a market capitalization of Rs. 100,000 crore (US$ 22 billion), net assets in excess of Rs 31,500 crore (US$ 7 billion), and net worth to the tune of Rs 27,500 crore (US$ 6 billion). The group has a customer base of over 50 million, the largest in India, and a shareholder base of over 8 million, among the largest in the world. Through its products and services, the Reliance - ADA Group touches the life of 1 in 10 Indians every single day. The business presence of the Group extends to over 6,000 towns and 300,000 villages in India, and 5 continents across the world. The interests of the Group range from communications (Reliance Communications) and financial services (Reliance Capital Ltd), to generation, transmission and distribution of power (Reliance Energy), infrastructure and entertainment.


Anil Dhirubhai Ambani's net worth alone is estimated to be around US$18.2 billion as of 2007 whereas Google's total assets and net income are estimated to be US$25.335 billion and US$4.203 billion respectively for the same period. His groups' total assets can outdo Google's numbers hands down.


Then why AdSense on Zapak?


I'm not against AdSense and I accept that it is a great way to make revenue for any website. Moreover, the revenues will only be higher if it has a large user base. And Zapak being the premier online gaming site in India has no dearth of users, be it registered ones or guests. But Zapak endorsing AdSense? Unbelievable! Reliance has set benchmarks and seen remarkable growth even after the split up. They have a legacy of their own and it's their individuality that has kept them going. Theirs is an amazing rags to riches story and taught us to Dream Big. Now, have they lost it? It may seem no big deal but for a huge corporate entity like Reliance, it is. Mozy created waves when it landed a multi-million dollar deal with GE for providing online storage solution. The question was: How could a huge corporate like GE trust an outside service for protecting it's sensitive data? This case is a bit different however because both GE and Mozy are leaders in their respective fields. But in our case, both belong to the same field. Both Google and Zapak are battling it out for the same space, to attract more audience. Google is untouchable as the height it has reached is tremendous. The purpose of Zapak was to break that myth atleast in India. Instead, Zapak sort of resounded the fact that it was Google which was dominant of the two. Zapak just lost out the edge to Google in the initial stage itself.


Zapak isn't the only portal on offer from ADAG. The group has been head over heels promoting BigAdda.com, an Indian Social Networking and blogging site similar to Google's Orkut with television commercials, banners, web ads and all sorts of possible marketing techniques. BigAdda.com is expected to compete head on with Orkut and overtake its leadership in the Social Networking circuit in India in the coming years. But here's the messed up part. Even BigAdda endorses Google AdSense.


Compared to Orkut, BigAdda is a small fry. And to overtake such a mammoth competitor requires more than just investment and publicity. It seems now that they have given in to Google's Market Leadership. What else do you say when one endorses his competitors product? The Ambanis have been successful in all the ventures that they have started. Success literally means Leadership for them, not mere profits. But nobody is quite sure about BigAdda. Online marketing is a totally different ball game. It's totally different from Telecommunications, Energy or Capital Investment. It's big time they realize that short term returns shouldn't be their objective. For long term sustenance of the portal, it's important that it has it's own unique identity. And co-branding with Google doesn't help in acquiring niche audience. It might end up like Yahoo! (another case of market expansion over product improvement), receiving unsolicited bids from competitor. And Google has been very successful in acquiring entities for its growth. Really don't hope to see BigAdda in Google's kitty. Zapak has started to create some flutters in the Indian web sphere and only time can tell where BigAdda is headed.


Hope BigAdda turns out to be another Reliance success story.


UPDATE: It seems Zapak has removed all Google from its pages. But still BigAdda hasn't.