Ramoji Rao had an eye for spotting opportunities.

When he was in Visakhapatnam for

opening a new branch of Margadarsi, he could not find a good hotel to stay. Within a few
months, the Group started the Dolphin Chain of Hotels, with a 3-star hotel in
Visakhapatnam, catering to the diverse needs of businessmen and tourists. In 1997, when
the Film City was established, the chain expanded its hotels to cater to different segments—
'Sitara' – the luxury hotel with restaurants, pool, gym and business centre was started to
cater to film stars, producers and directors. Tara was a 3-star economy hotel, and a budget
accommodation for the rest of the crew was available at Sahara. During his stay in
Visakhapatnam, Ramoji Rao, a newspaper addict, could not get the daily newspapers as
they reached a day later through post.
He discussed this problem with late A.J. Prasad, editor of Andhra Prabha 9. Ramoji Rao
suggested that A. J. Prasad should start a Visakhapatnam edition. When Ramoji Rao failed
to convince A. J. Prasad, he started 'Eenadu' in Visakhapatnam. 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. 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.

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 – Gujarati12 and Oriya13. Said an Eenadu official,
"The aim of the network is to build a brand and cater to niche audiences in all major