Editor R.Kannan Frequency Weekly Country India | Categories General Company Vikatan Group | |
Year founded 1926; 91 years ago (1926) | ||
Ananda Vikatan is the Tamil language weekly magazine published from Chennai, India.
Contents
History and profile
Vikatan was started by S. S. Vasan in 1926 when he purchased a humour magazine that was not doing well for Rs. 200. He built it up into a weekly and sales soon rose. Ananda Vikatan is still running successfully after ninety years. Veteran journalist and media personality S. Balasubramanian served as editor, managing director and publisher of the magazine for nearly 50 years till 2006. Balasubramanian also mentored generations of journalists and writers. He also started the "Manavar Thittam" or student journalism scheme that is active for the last 30 years and counting. He also launched Junior Vikatan, a bieweekly Tamil investigative journal in the 1980s in addition to his many accomplishments as Vikatan's publisher. He was the son of S. S. Vasan and continues to be Chairman Emeritus of the group after handing over the reins to his son B. Srinivasan.
Vikatan has now evolved as Vikatan group in the Tamil Nadu magazine industry. Vikatan over the years has provided the opportunity for many great Tamil writers such as Kalki Krishnamurthy, Devan, Sujatha Rangarajan, Gnani, Madhan, and Nadodi. Cartoons and illustration also flourished, producing work from artists Maya, 'Mali' Mahalingam, Madhan, Sridhar, Silpi, Thanu and Gopulu.
Currently Rajumurugan, Peyon, S.Ramakrishnan and Jeyamohan are some of the notable contributors to Vikatan.
Publications group
It is part of Vasan Publications, the Vikatan magazine group, which also publishes Junior Vikatan, Chutti Vikatan, Aval Vikatan, Naanayam Vikatan, Sakthi Vikatan, Motor Vikatan, Pasumai Vikatan, Doctor Vikatan, TimePass, Aval Manamagal, Aval Kitchen and Vikatan Deepavali Malar.
Visual media
Vikatan Televistas was launched by Vasan Publications in the late 1990s starting with weekly tele-serials on Sun TV. Since, they have become one of the most successful producers of serials in the channel with popular daily soaps Kolangal, Thendral, Thirumathi Selvam, Deivamagal, Azhagi and Priyamanaval on Sun TV is the most viewed South Indian TV program during their broadcast.
The company ventured into film production as Vikatan Talkies, and successfully made the comedy Siva Manasula Sakthi starring Jiiva and Anuya that launched the career of the director Rajesh. They then followed this with the commercially unsuccessful Valmiki. The media house still produces a variety of programs for television and has branched out into various streams of media content with an online digital broadcast of snippets of news, views, interviews etc.
Circulation details
According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, for the period of July–December 2004, circulation stood at 4,30,534 per week. This represents a 22 per cent growth over the previous half-year period.