hennai and Delhi may be separated by several hundred kilometres of diverse landscape, people and languages, but when it comes to television consumption habits, they have one thing in common. Both the markets are under the stranglehold of a single player. So if STAR Plus rules Delhi - and in fact the entire Hindi-speaking market - of cable and satellite television (C&S;), SunTV is the undisputed ruler in Tamil Nadu. As Prasun Kumar, media group head, Madison, puts it, "Sun is the STAR of the south."

According to data supplied by TAM Media, SunTV controls as much as 62 per cent of the television market in Tamil Nadu in terms of channel share. The closest competitor is sibling KTV, with a channel share of 23.4 per cent. JAYA TV comes in next with a share of 5.4 per cent, and STAR�s Vijay, which has also been able to garner 5.4 per cent. Raj TV trails with 3.8 per cent (target audience C&S; 4-plus, for the period April 21 to May 21, 2005).... more