Sun Group is an Indian

media conglomerate A media conglomerate, media company, media group, or media institution is a company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media enterprises, such as music, television, radio, publishing, motion pictures, video games, amusement parks, or ...

, based in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

. It was founded by Kalanithi Maran in 1992. The Sun Group, besides television media, operates 48 FM radio stations, two daily newspapers, five magazines, a DTH satellite service and T20 cricket franchises.

Subsidiaries

Television

In 1990, Kalanithi Maran started a monthly video (VHS) news magazine in Tamil called ''Poomaalai''. Sun TV is the first and flagship channel of the group started on 14 April 1993. Sun TV was listed on the

Bombay Stock Exchange BSE Limited, also known as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is an Indian stock exchange based in Mumbai. It is the 6th largest stock exchange in the world by total market capitalization, exceeding $5 trillion in May 2024. Established with t ...

on 24 April 2006 upon raising $133 million. Sun Group owns Sun TV Network's 37 TV Channels across four

South India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...

n languages

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

, Telugu,

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

, and the company's first step of TV Channel segment in North India is Bengali language and in the

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

language the company launched TV Channel on 17 October 2021, the Group's second step of TV channel segment in North India.

DTH and Cable Provider

Sun Direct is a DTH service provider established in December 2007. Sun Direct is the fourth largest DTH service provider in India as of March 2015. From its launch Sun Direct DTH continue to be the Market Leader of

Radio

The group owns 70

FM Radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting that uses frequency modulation (FM) of the radio broadcast carrier wave. Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to transmit high fidelity, high-f ...

stations across

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

broadcasting under the names Red FM, Suryan FM, Magic FM 106.4.

Newspapers and magazines

SUN Group owns two daily newspapers and five magazines in

Dinakaran Dinakaran is a Tamil daily newspaper distributed in Tamil Nadu, India. It was founded by K. P. Kandasamy in 1977 and is currently owned by media conglomerate Sun Group's Sun Network. ''Dinakaran'' is the second largest circulated Tamil dai ...

was founded in 1977 by K. P. Kandasamy and was acquired from K. P. K. Kumaran by Sun Network in 2005. It is the second largest circulated Tamil daily in India after

Dina Thanthi ''Dina Thanthi'' (, ; known as Daily Thanthi in English) is a Tamil language daily newspaper. It was founded by S. P. Adithanar in Madurai in 1942. ''Dina Thanthi'' is India's largest daily printed in the Tamil language and the ninth largest ...

, back in 2010. Tamil Murasu is an evening newspaper. The group owns magazines Kungumam, Kumguma Chimizh, Kungumam Thozhi, Aanmigam, Mutharam and Vannathirai.

Film production

Sun Pictures Sun Pictures is an Indian film production and film distribution based in Chennai, India. It is a division of Sun TV Network a part of the Sun Group. In 2010, it started producing films, the first film was '' Enthiran'' which was a huge blo ...

is a film production and distribution company established in 2000. It produced the TV film '' Siragugal'' and

Rajinikanth Shivaji Rao Gaikwad (born 12 December 1950), known professionally as Rajinikanth, is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. In a career spanning over five decades, he has done 170 films that includes films in Tamil, Hindi, ...

starrer '' Endhiran''. It has distributed more than 20 Tamil films starting from '' Kadhalil Vizhunthen''.

OTT Platform

Sun NXT is a global online audio/video streaming platform owned and operated by Sun Group's, Sun TV Network established in June 2017. It has more than 4000 movie titles including movies like Vijay's '' Sarkar'' Ajith Kumar's '' Mankatha'', and Rajinikanth's '' Petta''. Sun TV Network is planning to invest more in its OTT Platform, Sun NXT, by making original web series and original OTT movies from mid-2022.

Television Production Company

Sun Entertainment is Television production Company, which produces small budget movies for Sun TV Direct TV Premier, after movie released in TV it will be available only on Sun NXT OTT App, also co-producing all upcoming web series in Sun NXT OTT Platform which are coming soon in mid 2022 and also co-producing the serials which are showing in their TV Channels.

Sports

Sunrisers Hyderabad is a cricket franchise based in the city of

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

that plays in the

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league in India, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Founded in 2007, it features ten city-based Professional sports league organization, fr ...

(IPL). The team was bought by Kalanithi Maran in October 2012.

Daniel Vettori Daniel Luca Vettori (born 27 January 1979) is a New Zealand cricket coach and former cricketer who played for the New Zealand national cricket team. He was the 200th player to win their Test cricket cap for New Zealand and an inductee in the Ne ...

is the head coach and Pat Cummins is the captain of the team. They also own the

SA20 The SA20, also known as the Betway SA20 for sponsorship reasons, is a Twenty20 franchise cricket tournament in South Africa, organised by Cricket South Africa (CSA) and first contested during the 2023 season. It is contested by six teams ba ...

cricket franchise the Sunrisers Eastern Cape.

Aviation

SUN Group acquired 37.7% stake in Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet in June 2010. In 2012, Despite the losses, Kalanithi Maran increased his stake in Spicejet by investing in the airline. In January 2015, the Sun group sold its entire shareholding back to the airline's founder Ajay Singh and transferred control.

Corporate social responsibility

In 2018, the Sun Group donated ₹2 crore to support the relief efforts in the

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an ant ...

-affected districts of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control 01 Conglomerate companies of India Entertainment companies of India Publishing companies of India 1992 establishments in Tamil Nadu Mass media companies established in 1992 Indian companies established in 1992