MK TV
MK TV, also styled MKTV, is a Tamil-language general entertainment television channel based in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, owned by the Madurai Krishna Network. It broadcasts Tamil serials, films, songs, comedy and variety programmes to audiences across Tamil Nadu, as the flagship television service of a company whose roots lie not in a Chennai studio empire but in Madurai's local cable television business. Founded under the leadership of P. Sikkandar, who had established private local television in Madurai under the Krishna TV name since 1990, MK TV grew from a city channel into a satellite service carried on national direct-to-home platforms, and later became the parent channel of two sister services, the comedy channel MK Six and the music channel MK Tunes.
Overview
MK TV is a general entertainment channel in the regional, independent mould. Its schedule combines the standard elements of Tamil general entertainment — serials and films — with songs, comedy and variety programmes, the mixture recorded in satellite-era descriptions of the channel's output. It operates outside the big Chennai network groups: it is not part of the Sun, Zee, Star, Kalaignar, Jaya or Raj bouquets, but an independent service from Madurai, the temple city of southern Tamil Nadu, and one of the relatively small number of Tamil satellite channels headquartered outside the state capital. That origin is the channel's defining characteristic and explains both its local flavour and the structure of the company behind it.
History: From Krishna TV to Satellite
The story of MK TV begins with Krishna TV, the private local channel brand established in Madurai by P. Sikkandar, described in channel records as a pioneer in establishing private local channel television in Tamil Nadu, with the Krishna TV brand operating for two decades from 1990. In the 1990s and 2000s, Indian cities were served by local cable channels run by cable operators themselves, and Madurai's Krishna TV belonged to that first generation of local television: a city service built alongside the cable distribution business of the Madurai Krishna Network.
The step from local channel to satellite channel came in the early 2010s. MK TV began satellite transmission on Intelsat 17 at 66 degrees East, from where its Tamil general entertainment service — identified in forum reports of the time by its full name, Madurai Krishna TV — could be distributed across India. Its office address was recorded in Shenoy Nagar, Madurai, near Rajaji Hospital. The move placed a Madurai local broadcaster into the same distribution universe as the Chennai networks, and MK TV took its place in published lists of Tamil general entertainment channels alongside Vasanth TV, Vendhar TV, Tamilan TV, Makkal TV and other independent services.
The Madurai Krishna Network
MK TV's owner, Madurai Krishna Network Private Limited, is both a broadcaster and a cable distribution business. Legal proceedings in 2022, before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, described the company as a licensed local cable operator distributing cable television signals through fibre networks and set-top boxes in Tamil Nadu, which also operated three television channels: MK TV, MK Six and MK Tunes. That dual identity — channel owner and cable operator — is a direct survival of the company's origins, and relatively unusual among satellite broadcasters.
The same proceedings give a window into the company's later difficulties. The network had entered into arrangements in 2018 to procure tens of thousands of set-top boxes for its cable operations, a transaction that became the subject of insolvency proceedings admitted against the company by the National Company Law Tribunal's Chennai bench in July 2022, with an insolvency resolution professional appointed; the company's suspended directors appealed that admission. Whatever the outcome of that dispute, the record documents a small regional broadcaster carrying the heavy infrastructure economics of the cable digitisation era, in which operators were required to seed digital set-top boxes across their subscriber bases.
Sister Channels: MK Six and MK Tunes
MK TV's expansion followed the classic bouquet pattern of Tamil television, in which a successful general channel spins off genre services. The Madurai Krishna Network received broadcast licences for two further channels, MK Six and MK Tunes, with the licences reported in 2016 in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's lists of permitted private satellite channels. Test transmissions of both channels from Intelsat 17 began in October 2016, initially carrying Tamil songs and comedy, with regular 24-hour programming to follow, as free-to-air services whose satellite footprint covered India, Asia and the Middle East. MK Six took comedy as its genre, while MK Tunes became the network's Tamil music channel. Together with MK TV, they gave the Madurai network the same three-genre structure — entertainment, comedy, music — that far larger Tamil groups maintained.
Language and Genre
MK TV broadcasts in Tamil. Its genre is general entertainment: the channel is classified as a Tamil GEC in industry overviews of the South Indian market, listed among the independent Tamil general entertainment channels rather than with the network-owned giants. The distinction matters for understanding its schedule. A network GEC such as Sun TV or Star Vijay builds its day around expensive original serials and reality formats; an independent GEC of MK TV's scale builds its day around a broader variety mixture — films, songs, comedy segments and entertainment programmes — drawing on the deep Tamil library of film and comedy content. Satellite-era reporting on the network described its television output precisely in those terms: Tamil songs, comedy and variety programmes.
Programming
The channel's programming, as described in the network's own profile and channel listings, spans serials, films and variety programmes. Films provide the long-form backbone familiar to Tamil family audiences; serials serve the daily fiction habit that anchors general entertainment viewing in Tamil Nadu; and comedy and variety strands give the channel lighter material between its longer programmes, in the tradition that its sister channel MK Six would later turn into a full channel of its own. Channel directories have at times described MK Television as a music-led station, reflecting how heavily songs featured in its variety mixture — a common character of independent Tamil GECs, whose schedules lean on film music in a way that the fiction-led network channels do not.
This programming model also reflects the channel's Madurai identity. Madurai is one of Tamil Nadu's great cultural cities, and a channel growing out of the city's own cable era addressed viewers whose tastes were formed by local cable television: films first, songs and comedy woven through the day, and entertainment rooted in Tamil popular culture rather than in nationally formatted reality television.
Availability and Distribution
MK TV's satellite life began on Intelsat 17, and its distribution widened as the Madurai Krishna channels were added to national platforms. Videocon d2h's Tamil line-up carried MK TV at channel number 558, in the main Tamil entertainment block of that platform, with MK Six also carried at 596. In March 2017, the MK channels were among the Tamil services added to Tata Sky, in a wave of Tamil additions that also brought MK Six and MK Tunes to that platform — the national DTH carriage that turned a Madurai network into an all-India Tamil service. The channels began their satellite life as free-to-air services on C-band, a mode of distribution that also made them available to cable headends across Tamil Nadu and to dish viewers across their Asian footprint.
Audience and Positioning
MK TV's audience is the Tamil family audience of Tamil Nadu, with a natural heartland in the state's southern districts around its home city of Madurai. Its positioning among independent channels is best understood from the company it keeps in market overviews: DreamDTH's detailed guide to South Indian channels lists MK TV and MK Six among the independent Tamil general entertainment channels, outside the network tables of Sun, Star, Zee, Viacom18, Jaya, Kalaignar and Raj. For viewers, such independent channels form the second layer of Tamil television — services discovered while browsing the Tamil block of a DTH platform, watched for films, songs and comedy, and valued precisely because they are not the big network channels.
The channel also carried the flag for Madurai in a Chennai-dominated industry. Tamil television production, like Tamil cinema, is concentrated in Chennai; a satellite channel owned and run from Madurai, growing out of that city's own cable history since 1990, represented a genuinely regional voice within the Tamil-language market, and its network's eventual three-channel bouquet was an achievement of scale for a company of its origins.
Digital Presence
The network has maintained an official web presence through its Madurai Krishna television websites, including mktv.in and maduraikrishnatv.com, the latter recorded as the network's site from its early satellite period. Its channels were also listed by the online live-television directories that catalogued Indian channels for streaming-era viewers, through which MK TV's entertainment service was presented to viewers beyond its cable and DTH footprint. As with many independent regional channels, its digital footprint remained modest beside its broadcast presence, centred on the network's own sites rather than on large stand-alone streaming platforms.
Notable Facts
MK TV is a Tamil general entertainment channel from Madurai, owned by Madurai Krishna Network Private Limited. Its founder figure, P. Sikkandar, had run private local television in Tamil Nadu under the Krishna TV brand since 1990. The channel moved to satellite on Intelsat 17 and was carried on Videocon d2h at channel 558 and added to Tata Sky in March 2017. Its sister channels are the comedy service MK Six and the music service MK Tunes, both test-launched in October 2016 after receiving broadcast licences that year. The parent company was simultaneously a licensed cable operator in Tamil Nadu, and in 2022 it faced insolvency proceedings arising from a set-top box procurement dispute — a reminder of the difficult economics behind one of Tamil television's few Madurai-based satellite channels.
