This is a 15-year-old memory.

The bus carrying the visitors on a tour of Ramoji Film City took a turn on a gradient and stopped. The guide on the bus pointed to a tree throwing a large canopy of shadow under it and said, this was where “peddayana” (meaning Ramoji Rao) used to sit and dream of creating the largest film city in the world. A one-stop film city where one could “arrive with a cheque and leave with a completed film.” At the time, it was a vast stretch of 2000 acre open land with nothing in it. That dream certainly can be seen thriving today.

This was just one of the many dreams, some seemingly impossible, dreamt by Ramoji Rao — starting a finance company, newspapers, magazines, television network, pickles, filmmaking, hotels, shipbreaking, handlooms and handicrafts, fruit drinks, and travel. Some of the enterprises evolved more by way of horizontal or vertical integration of production processes, or to keep the businesses in-house.

As can be imagined, the one enterprise that kept him in the public eye regularly is the media business – the newspaper Eenadu and the television network ETV – and how he used it in politics.

Eenadu arrived in 1974 and blazed a trail of innovation, not just in the Telugu newspaper market, but in Indian language journalism too. Eenadu began by changing the use of formal language in news stories until then, to spoken language that could communicate easily with ordinary readers. 

Starting the Eenadu Journalism School (EJS) early on was the primary strategy to strengthen the language skills of journalists coming in to work for Eenadu. It was one of the most rigorous systems of training in language use imparted by some of the best writers and translators of the time. All news recruits had to read classics every week, review them and do translation exercises to learn precision in expression. 

The media house’s less known innovation, but a critical ingredient for its success, is its Research and Reference wing. A purpose-built repository of books, reports, magazines, and newspaper archives that is essential for well-researched, authentic reporting. It is now called the Ramoji Knowledge Centre.

In the 1970s, newspapers would arrive late in the evening or the next day in many remote areas of then Andhra Pradesh. But Eenadu devised aggressive strategies for distribution, introducing district editions and tabloid supplements, and an army of stringers providing local information, essentially changing the landscape of news consumption, and permanently transforming readers’ expectations. Newspapers began to arrive first thing in the morning.

The readers in remote urban and rural areas suddenly began to see their affairs being covered in district editions and regional supplements. The local politicians found a platform. The local businesses began to see affordable advertising opportunities. This allowed Eenadu to mop up advertising based on local needs.

ETV was also an early entrant into the commercial television market and soon expanded to other states and other languages like Bengali and Hindi, catering to north India. It introduced an Urdu channel much before other networks. 

Both Eenadu and ETV remained market leaders for decades with first-mover advantage. The boom in the media industry and the entry of many new players into the market have reduced the mindspace that Eenadu/ETV media houses once occupied among the Telugu public.

The departed Ramoji Rao may have looked fifty years ahead into the future, or was singularly adaptable as an innovator and a businessman. Much of what he did was extraordinary for its time and changed the course of journalism and the entertainment industry in India in remarkable ways.

At his passing, with the wisdom of hindsight, we look back at his legacy. Fifty years is a long time to look back. It is bound to be a mixed bag of greatness, sometimes marred by human errors.

Soon after Eenadu shifted to Hyderabad from Visakhapatnam in the 1970s, the newspaper faced a strike of the employees. Many anecdotes are narrated by journalists who participated in that strike, but a major fallout was the displacement of the Editor as the head of operations. Eenadu is one of the earliest papers in India to diminish the role of editors, with the management directly taking charge of newspaper content with a notional head. And this has spread like a contagion across India. Ironically, Ramoji Rao became the Chairman of the Editors’ Guild of India.

Another early influence on Eenadu was its overt, declared association with a political party, Telugu Desam Party (TDP). In Andhra Pradesh of those times, open battle lines were drawn between the Reddy-dominated Congress party and the Kamma-dominated TDP. Reddy and Kamma castes are both small (6% and 4%) but dominant, and control agriculture, health, and several sectors of the economy in the Telugu states.

Congress’ YS Rajasekhara Reddy, during his regime in Andhra Pradesh, used to bitterly complain of hounding by Eenadu house. His solution was to start his own media house with a newspaper (Sakshi) and a television channel (Sakshi TV), helmed by his son Jagan Mohan Reddy, the recently defeated chief minister of residual Andhra Pradesh. Today, every political party, either directly or through proxies, seeks to own a media house to counter the attacks from its rivals.

Eenadu’s contribution to outstanding professionalism in Telugu journalism was marred by how it compelled its journalists to play a central and partisan role in these battles of caste and political loyalties. Mainstream media have attained an unprecedented notoriety for their partisanship in Telugu states and nationally.

The bitterness of political attacks through its media arm also attracted counter attacks, which robbed Ramoji Rao’s peace of mind in his last days. Margadarsi Financiers, the financial backbone of the Eenadu house (along with the Margadarsi Chit Funds), ran into serious regulatory trouble after losing a case in the Supreme Court recently. 

But Ramoji Rao remained combative till the end. 

Not just an innovator, he had an uncanny ability to spot talent. Having been associated with the Eenadu School of Journalism, I was privileged to attend one of the graduation ceremonies where Ramoji Rao addressed the outgoing students. One sentence, which almost sounds like a truism, remains with me. “I can pick any 12th class student and train them to be the best journalist, but if your attitude is all wrong, you will not be employable.” Those recruited and mentored by him in the media house remain his ardent, life-long admirers.

He was indeed a once in a century phenomenon. A visionary and a transformatory force.

Padmaja Shaw is member of the Jago Telangana Team and a retired Professor of Journalism in the Osmania University.

Views expressed are the author's own.