THE RAMOJI GROUP

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continued from : RAMOJI RAO - SPOTTING NEW OPPORTUNITIES

When Ramoji Rao saw the tremendous success of Hindi movies, with heavy investments, he planned to enter the film industry, but with creative and thought-provoking low-budget movies. Ramoji Rao explained, "Convictions make you do things. With mega-budgets and big names, Mumbai could work magic. But I thought, with some creative effort, low-budget films could be made." The movies from Ushokiron Movies seemed successful, appealing to all age groups. There were family dramas, comedies, love stories and social movies to appeal to all kinds of movie-goers.
 

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 (Refer Exhibit II). 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[3] and Oriya[4] . 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.

^[1]The first edition of The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce, later renamed The Times of India, was launched in Mumbai in 1838. After several years of change, evolution and growth in the paper's character, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd (the proprietors of The Times of India Group) was established with the principal objective of publishing newspapers, journals, magazines and books. By 2001, The Times of India Group emerged as a multi-edition, multi-product organisation. Some of the brands owned by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. are The Times of India, The Economic Times, Femina, Filmfare, Navbharat Times, Sandhya Times and Times FM.

^[2]The Hindu published by the Hindu Group of Publications from Chennai, started in 1878 as a weekly, became a daily in 1889 and from then on has been steadily growing. It has circulation of over 700,000 copies and a readership of over 3 million as in 2001. The Hindu's independent editorial stand and its reliable and balanced presentation of the news have over the years, won for it the serious attention and regard of the people who matter in India and abroad. It is printed in eight centres apart from the Main Edition at Chennai (Madras) where the Corporate Office is based. The printing centres include Coimbatore, Bangalore, Madurai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Visakhapatnam, Thiruvanathapuram & Kochi.

[3]One of the 18 official languages in India.

[4]One of the 18 official languages in India.