The front page of the Tamil newspaper, Dina Thanthi (The Daily Telegraph), once India’s largest-read newspaper, the day after its proprietor, B. Sivanthi Adithyan, passed away in Madras at the age of 76.
On the bottom-half of the page is a picture of Adithyan being decorated by the then President of India, Pratibha Patil. with the Padma Sri in 2008.
Like so many compatriot-South Indian newspaper owners of his generation (think S. Rangarajan of The Hindu, think K.A. Nettakallappa of Deccan Herald), Adithyan was a passionate sports enthusiast and a major domo in sports administration.
Friends say Adithyan, a longtime functionary of the Indian Olympic Association, was a no mean trap-shooter himself.
Adithyan’s family sold the Dinakaran newspaper title to the Marans of the Sun TV group.
Also the owner of a paper mill and an evening newspaper (Malai Malar), Adithyan had recently acquired NDTV-Hindu, the hyper-local newschannel started by NDTV and The Hindu, and turned it into Thanthi TV.
On Thanthi TV (channel no. 723 on Tata Sky), the funeral procession had near-blanket coverage, in the way, say, Doordarshan covered the deaths of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi in the pre-satellite TV era.
The cortege was followed live by Thanthi TV cameras all the way to the crematorium, while every visitor was accommodated on the screen through multiple windows.
Most newspapers do that: any issue that is their own gets highlighted is the sole front page news. Check out Hindu newspaper edition the next day of Jayalalitha’s privilege case against it. Even inside pages were painted! I had seen the Delhi edition.
What can i say LOL. This is how all media houses function these days.