[3] In the eight decades of family ownership, Vikatan rose to prominence across the Tamil speaking populations and also identified, introduced and nurtured the careers of people in Indian media, literature and arts.
It was under his leadership that the group created Junior Vikatan, a magazine in investigative journalism, a bi-weekly publication focusing on crime and politics, amongst other topics, such as it having covered the Auto Shankar serial killings.
In 1987, Balan was at the center of a free speech fight when the Privileges Committee of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly sentenced him to 3 months of prison-time due to the publication of a cartoon satire[6][7][8][9] on the front cover of Ananda Vikatan.
[10][11] He was let out of jail after two days of media outcry and, against the state legislature before the Madras High Court in 1994, won the case, received 1,000 rupees in compensation, and put the money inside a frame as display in his office.
[13] Ananda Vikatan was among the first media houses that refused to print tobacco product and cigarette advertisements in the 1980s when it was first proved that smoking caused cancer even before this was legally required.
[14] Contributing to Tamil journalism, Balan created a mentorship program for student journalists and had helped bring many generations of media professionals into the field.
and having assisted and funded the growth of a large number of other media organizations and publications such as helping his friend Cho Ramaswamy launch Thuglak magazine.
This was later remade in Tamil as Motor Sundaram Pillai starring Sivaji Ganesan along with an ensemble cast and was the directorial debut of Balan.
He ran the media empire while his father, S.S. Vasan, who was nominated to the Rajya Sabha as a member of parliament from 1964 until his death in 1969, focused on his parliamentary duties in Delhi.
In the mid-1970s, the failure of his magnum opus in four languages (Hindi, Tamil and Telugu) titled Ellorum Nallavare precipitated the shutdown of the Gemini Studios.
[24] In the early 1980s with the decline of the studio system, Balan sought to focus on publishing and sold the film company and its assets while retaining Vasan Publications/Ananda Vikatan.
[26] His penchant for meticulous detail, logical innovativeness and management, filtered down to the very last of his employees and even the Planning Commission of India has at various times studied his highly productive and practical methods for bringing in the next wave of green revolution.
Balan also created the Gemini Agro Technical Educational (GATE) Foundation that brings farmers from across regions to his farms to study agricultural techniques for free.