Srinivasan B completes 35 years in Vikatan

Srinivasan B, Managing Director at Vikatan Group, has completed 35 years with the organization.

Remembering his more-than-three-decade-long journey, Srinivasan B wrote a straight-from-heart note on LinkedIn, “Today I step into the 35th year of my life with Vikatan.

I remember my first day as vividly as ever.

Literally no induction, orientation or even anything more than quick introductions to faces I was desperately trying to remember, I simply stepped into the hinterland of management with an ominous title of 'Joint Managing Director' with no job description, let alone KRA's or KPI's. It was supposedly 34 years before this very day that my father had stepped into this position before me, in similar fashion, he quipped.”

Looking back, Srinivasan has divided his journey with Vikatan in lapses of 5 years.

“> 1995 Having comprehensively missed the satellite tv revolution, I focussed solely on job printing to augur revenues

> 2000 After a disastrous attempt with a daily newspaper 'Vikatan Paper', I took a surrogate route to C&S TV through the production - commenced my first and second startups - Vikatan Televistas and Vikatan.com

, the latter serving the latent online demand for content.

> 2005 Focus on community magazine titles; Ananda Vikatan gains its rightful position of being the #1 magazine in Tamil - certified by ABC July-December 2004. To avoid going bust, vikatan.com

 went pay and succeeded in turning around in barely 100 days.

> 2010 To grow online, we needed content. But in those days, 'good journalists' did not write for the 'frivolous online' medium. We hired online specialists who were 'not great journalists' and faced brickbats from our own 'veterans' to the 'quality' of Vikatan's online content!

> 2015 Vikatan Televistas had peaked in production efficiency and profitability churning out 9 daily soaps a day in 4 southern languages. On YouTube, we saw soaring numbers of customers online watching our daily soaps and we had begun riding the social revolution. We unleashed a digital transformation and a culture change in the organisation, training journalists to become 'jack of all media'.

> 2020 Launched Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards, our flagship awards property, followed by Nambikkai, Aval and Naanayam, all of which become category leaders in TV TRPs and social media engagement scores.

COVID strikes.

> 2025 after right sizing, we now have an organisation that is culturally aligned, and a lean, mean machine.

- Print and Awards are the Yin and the Yang of the offline business while digital, social are finding their balance between growth and profitability.

- Television production has entered its logical growth into Hindi markets and has tasted first blood with the success of 'Udne Ki Asha' on Star Plus.”

He concluded, sharing, “New product launches are on the anvil and excitement for the year ahead is brimming.

None of this would be possible without the most able team that I work with. To our Customers, Distributors, Advertising Agencies and Clients, Vendors, Well wishers, My dearest colleagues - I am truly grateful for all your support through these years.”

Vikatan - you are the greatest influencer in the longest part of my life. And i owe it all to you.