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How to be a media mogul
In 1990, when most of India was watching one of two Doordarshan channels, Mumbai resident Ronnie Screwvala started a company called UTV that came up with Shanti – India’s first daily soap that ran till 1995. In those intervening five years, India’s television industry boomed. Screwvala, and the company he founded, grew with it, reoprts Princy Jain.
In 1990, when most of India was watching one of two Doordarshan channels, Mumbai resident Ronnie Screwvala started a company called UTV that came up with Shanti – India’s first daily soap. It was new for a country till then used to waiting a week for the next episode of its favourite serial.
Shanti ran till 1995, and launched several careers including that of everyone’s favourite non-playing cricket star, Mandira Bedi. In those intervening five years, India’s television industry boomed. Screwvala, and the company he founded, grew with it.
Screwvala’s firm is now a conglomerate that earned Rs 6,768 million in 2008. The man himself has made his maiden entry into Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people on the planet. The magazine says, “the Mumbai-based movie mogul is hoping to export his Bollywood know-how to the US, partnering with such companies as Fox Searchlight and Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment. His first Stateside effort was the critically acclaimed, modestly performing The Namesake…”
It’s the reward for taking the path less trodden, says his wife and UTV co-founder Zarina Mehta. “He is an adventurer. He wakes up each morning with a new goal in his mind,” she says. And the key driver for him, she says, is not success. “Success and failure, I think we both believe, are mere outcomes. The real fun is the work itself.”
It’s been a lot of work — mostly successful — for them.
Today, after 18 years of its existence, UTV has a presence across movie production, broadcasting, television content, and the gaming and new media businesses. “UTV has been involved with every segment of the media, from pioneering cable television to the integrated media and entertainment company UTV is today,” says Screwvala.
UTV’s umbrella includes UTV Motion Pics, UTV Global Broadcasting, UTV New Media, Indiagames, Ignition and True Games and UTV Television.
“Our biggest successes have been motion pictures, and Hungama in broadcasting. We have just started on the other channels and in games. 2010 is the year to watch out for UTV”, says Screwvala. “Our weakest link is that our model is not yet fully understood and appreciated by many, but it’s Work In Progress.”
No script is developed into a film without Screwvala’s personal approval. In 2008, UTV made films like Jodhaa Akbar, Race and Fashion besides small hits including A Wednesday and Mumbai Meri Jaan. According to Madhur Bhandrakar, he is the man with the ‘golden eye’. “He can spot hit,” he says.
Ask him his strategy for UTV motion pictures and Screwvala says, “We believe that the script is the centrepiece from which success is born. The ability to spot a great script and then take it to the next level is the key to commercial success.”
He is unworried by the current economic slowdown. In fact, he says, “It is the best thing that has happened for the media in a long time. It is the correction phase. This is the testing time, and only the people with strong business model will survive.”
His agenda for the next two years includes “a higher than industry growth rate”. With 12 to 14 movies releasing in the coming year alone, achieving that ambition may not be a stretch for UTV.
