The Ramoji Group

In October 1998, Ramoji Rao launched an aggressive global marketing campaign for his Film City. This followed the completion of the latest technology color laboratory, which was certified by Kodak as one among the 10 top processing facilities in the world, and dubbing and set-construction facilities. He visited Los Angeles and held meetings with owners of major studios and independent companies. To penetrate further into the satellite television market, Ramoji Rao planned to extend ETV to other languages. In March 2000, ETV launched India's first private earth station, to help expand the satellite TV market. Apart from ETV-Bangla, ETV-Marathi, and ETV-Kannada, ETV launched the first Urdu channel in India, ETV-Urdu in June 2001. By the end of 2001, Eenadu was planning to launch channels in two other niche markets - Gujarati and Oriya. Said an Eenadu official, "The aim of the network is to build a brand and cater to niche audiences in all major regional languages." Analysts felt that an important characteristic of the Ramoji Group was that it had always been a family-run organization. The flagship company of the group, Margadarsi Chit Funds, was managed by one of Ramoji Rao's daughters-in-law. Another daughter-in-law looked after the hotels run by the Dolphin Hotels chain in the Film City.