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The Ramoji Group

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Ramoji Rao – Spotting New Opportunities Contd...

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. Analysts felt that Ramoji Rao was a good strategist. The 'mini-editions' concept of Eenadu was a great success. Eenadu was also one of the first publications to be printed in color. Ramoji Rao also introduced different supplements like 'Vasundhara' for women and 'Eenadu Cinema' with film gossips for youngsters. Over the years, Eenadu became the numero uno newspaper in Andhra Pradesh until The Times of India¹⁰ launched its Hyderabad edition in 2001. The Times of India followed an aggressive price cut policy.

In June 2001, Eenadu formed an alliance with The Hindu11 to sell advertising space in each other's publication, to counter competition from The Times of India. 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 (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.

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10] 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.

11] 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.