Yes that’s what I feel. Watching Sun TV is definitely heights of Idotism. Infact the recent review on "Kolangal", a so called "mega serial" triggered me to write this review on Sun TV.
No doubt sun tv started as a favourite and was leading the race for more than 10 years among the other cable channels. Their programmes, picture and sound quality were excellent in the begining. May be it looked so, because Sun TV was the only private channel at that time and programs that appeared at the time were never seen before in Doordarshan channels. They had a team of young attractive comperers and wide range of programs initially.
But now in the last few years Sun TV has lost its charm. As indicated in one of the reviews I think the evening slot is being occupied by array of serials. The saddest part is that the plot of those serials are almost identical, revolving around a x-heroine(s) of tamil cinema, showing her sufferrings etc. Its very scary to see the amount of violent scenes, scenes relating to illegitimate affairs, boozing and smoking shown in those, so called "Kudumba kadaigal"(family drama).
Apart from these boring serials, Sun TV still is showing those age old programs like "Pepsi Ungal Choice", Top 10 etc. The conversations between the anchor and the viewer are almost predictable. Most of the callers say that they feel very happy to get the line and talk. There’s no lively topics or some fresh ideas being exchanged. The worst part is, the program is called as "ungal choice", but if u observe closely, you’ll find out that none of the choice of the callers are played. I mean all the callers will say "Pudu padathulendu oru pudu paatu podunga"(Play any new song from a new film?!? I wonder, Can anyone ever play an old song from a new film?!). Which means the callers are given clear instructions, not to request any songs of their choice, but the channel will telecast the song they want from some a film, may be after taking money from the producers of the film. Sunrise "Neengal ketta padal" is another example for this.
The anchors of Sun TV are such a bore these days, for example the guy who comperes the late night comedy show called "Comedy Time", is really a pain in the wrong place. For so many years he’s been talking the same thing in each and every show. The comedy time, is actually a tragedy time for the viewers.
Now, that Sun TV has a new program(!?! Pudusa sutta program:-)) known as "Asatha povadu yaaru". Every two minutes someone or other in that show, claims that this is the original program and the others are fake! Even a child knows that its a remake of "Kalakka povadu yaaru" from Vijay TV. The irony is, everyone performing in that program are from the Vijay TV’s program, yet they all criticise Vijay TV and claim that this is the original program and try to please("kaakka pudikiradhu") the sun tv management by saying some unwanted things about the other channels. I feel that this not required at all.
The last but not the least, the week before any big festivals, like "Diwali", "Pongal"(pongal is the worst of all, bcos generally we have 3 days of holidays and 2 days of pongal spl programms atleast) etc. Sun TV will start showing all the trailers of the programs to come for those spl days and repeat the trailers every hour:-( . Even a second standard student can predict the type of programms that are going to come on those days. Morning they start with some classical music(generally it will be a repeat from past years, ) and with some "Arul Urai" etc and go on and on with interviews from directors, actors, actressess, singers, comedians etc. They might even go to the extent of interviewing a light boy(pls understand that im not trying to degrade the efforts of the light boys or other support people in the industry), what I mean is they want someone to talk about some film or other and nothing else. And they have this another leathal weapon in their armory, called as spl shows during the festival days, featuring their own comperers and stars from the serials. They come, dance, sing, flirt, talk some nonsense and make up half an hour or one hour and go. This doesn’t happen only in Sun TV, but on all other tamil channels also. So I cannot blame sun tv alone for this, but they are the ones who started it all.
Overall, Sun Tv and even other tamil channels to a large extent, think their viewers only like to see stupid serials and cinema related programs. I think thats wrong. There are so many innovative things they can do and come up with lot of variety.
To conclude, the Sun TV lacks variety and innovative ideas. They now have to realize they are loosing their audience thick and fast.