← Good Bad Billionaire
Good Bad Billionaire
Ronnie Screwvala: The cable guy
00:39:43
How Ronnie Screwvala changed the viewing habits of India
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- [00:00]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals including 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buyers. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority skills, company revenue so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of major ad networks. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com Broadcast that's LinkedIn.com Broadcast. Terms and conditions apply. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Listen to Washington Wise an original podcast for investors from Charles Schwab to hear the stories making news in was host Mike Townsend, Charles Schwab's Managing Director for Legislative and Regulatory affairs takes a non partisan look at the stories that matter most to investors, including policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes and trade, inflation concerns, the Federal Reserve, and how regulatory developments can affect companies, sectors and even the entire market. Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and follow@schwab.com WashingtonWise or wherever you listen.
- [01:48]
Zing Singh
It's 1981 and we're in what was then Bombay, now known as Mumbai. We're on the 18th floor of a high rise tower block of fancy apartments.
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Simon Jack
A 25 year old man stands in front of the final door at the end of a long corridor. He's knocked on every single door from the ground up, all 80 of them.
- [02:07]
Zing Singh
He's trying to sell the residents his dream. A dream of plenty, a dream of choice, a dream of entertainment. He's seen the future and it's cable tv.
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Simon Jack
So he knocks, the door opens and he politely begins his sales pitch. But another door slams in his face. Not to worry though. Within a decade every person in this city will be watching something he made
- [02:31]
Zing Singh
welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money.
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Simon Jack
We take them from zero to their first million, then from a million onto a billion.
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Zing Singh
My name is Zing Singh and I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.
- [02:44]
Simon Jack
And I'm Simon Jack. I'm the BBC's business editor and on
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Zing Singh
this episode we have someone who I think all of our Indian listeners will probably have heard of.
- [02:52]
Simon Jack
Yeah. Or certainly seen the stuff that his company have made. His name is Ronnie Scrovala.
- [02:59]
Zing Singh
That's right. Ronnie Scrivala is one of our newest minted billionaires. He's 69 years old and Forbes declared him a billionaire in 2025 worth $1.5 billion.
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Simon Jack
He's widely described by the media as Bollywood's first billionaire.
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Zing Singh
And that's perhaps surprising given it is the world's second largest movie market.
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Simon Jack
His wealth actually eclipsed the entire Bollywood industry's box office takings. However, it wasn't really Bollywood that sealed his billionaire status, rather a in edtech, that's education technology.
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Zing Singh
But he wouldn't have gotten to that point without a long and incredibly successful career in Indian media. And he changed the face of Indian TV and cinema along the way.
- [03:39]
Simon Jack
But to understand how he shaped an entire subcontinent's viewing habits, we first need to talk toothbrushes.
- [03:45]
Zing Singh
That's right, toothbrushes. So let's head back to the very beginning and find out how Ronnie Scrivala went from zero to a million.
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Simon Jack
So Rohint Bonnie Scrovala was born in 1956 in Bombay, as that was then now Mumbai, to a Parsi family. He grew up in lower middle class circumstances. He shared his childhood home with his parents, two aunts, his mum's grandparents and his brother sharing four bedrooms along one corridor. His mum and aunts taught the piano and music played a very big role in party culture.
- [04:21]
Zing Singh
And he lived in a crowded area of Mumbai which was famous back then for over a dozen beautiful cinemas and movie halls. And as a child, Ronnie took advantage of the loc, which overlooked a cinema. Every time there was a movie premiere, he would sell tickets to the family's veranda from where fans could gawk at their favorite Bollywood stars walking down that red carpet watching their film for the first time.
- [04:44]
Simon Jack
And a very early entrepreneurial streak right there. His father worked for British companies that sold healthcare products into the Indian market. And when Ronnie was in his mid teens, his father got, in Ronnie's words, a large job becoming managing director at the company. So the family moved to an upmarket coastal neighborhood of mu, and Ronnie moved to an elite private school. Ronnie said that everyone came in a car and I was taking the bus.
- [05:09]
Zing Singh
At his new school, Ronnie focused his energy into elocution and debate because in his words, if you elocute, you get noticed. He was also what you might call a theater kid. He played the Tin man in the wizard of Oz, Patricio in the Taming of the Shrew. He said they were very, very strong formative years. Theater gives you that sense of confidence, that sense of agility, of communication and a very strong sense of collaborativeness.
- [05:33]
Simon Jack
Have you ever give us your great credits from your childhood acting years? Now I actually.
- [05:38]
Zing Singh
Well, the funny thing is I think I was a theatre kid, but I was not a very good one.
- [05:43]
Simon Jack
No.
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Zing Singh
Could never remember lines, terrible with stage directions, always confused stage left and stage right.
- [05:48]
Simon Jack
Ok, but you've definitely done it. So which parts can we.
- [05:50]
Zing Singh
I'm trying to remember. Oh my God. Okay, you're really taking me back. Okay. I think that we studied the Merchant of Venice at school back in Singapore and I think, oh my gosh, no, I can't even remember the character.
- [06:03]
Simon Jack
It wasn't Shylock then. Because you would have remembered that.
- [06:05]
Zing Singh
No, I would have remembered that.
- [06:06]
Simon Jack
So I hear you ask, which ones did you play?
- [06:08]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Simon.
- [06:08]
Zing Singh
Yes, Simon. You took me back there for a second. But now I must ask you, what did you play?
- [06:13]
Simon Jack
I was a version of the King and I at a major London theatre.
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Zing Singh
At a major London theatre. It was. Yes, you're wasted in financial journalism.
- [06:22]
Simon Jack
I was an advert for butter as well. Back in the 1970s. I got paid £14 for my advert for Le Pac butter. I can't believe this is. 90% of this is going to end up on the cutting room floor or
- [06:33]
Zing Singh
on your IMDb profile. You never know.
- [06:36]
Simon Jack
Anyway, shall we continue with a more interesting story? After school, Ronnie started a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Sydenham College in Mumbai. He'd actually done so well at school, he went straight into the second year. But he described college as an anti climax. In fact, he said it was downhill for the next three to four years.
- [06:53]
Zing Singh
In his own words, he'd become arrogant at school. So when he got to college, he spent way too much time hanging out with the clever girls at a nearby college. To his shock, he failed the end of year exams and described the feeling as the whole world comes to a grinding halt. Are you going to be a permanent failure? Are you not as smart as. So Ronnie decided to leave school without a degree and give up his father's wishes for him to become a chartered accountant instead.
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Simon Jack
He wanted to become an entrepreneur. Of course, he recently got a taste for it when he and his friends organized a rock concert placing this. This was the mid-1970s and he said, according to our parents, rock and roll was a sign the world was ending.
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Zing Singh
Not the first billionaire who got his Start in music. Think of Richard Branson, for instance. But Ronnie only managed to fill roughly half the 3,000 seats at and it took him nearly a year to pay off his losses. He was, in his own words, bankrupt at 18 and failed college the same year. And his parents weren't keen on his ambition to become an entrepreneur. Ronnie said everyone in India believed that you only wanted to be an entrepreneur if you didn't get a good job. It reeks of instability.
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Simon Jack
I love that line. It reeks of instability. And actually instability is the life of an entrepreneur, but it can lead to great riches, as in this case. So Ronnie in his early 20s, he still has a love of acting, so he pursues this passion at the same time as his business. He works for India's only TV station, the government controlled state broadcaster Doordashan, as a TV presenter and various characters on children's TV programs, including the Merry monster on the Magic Lamp, India's answer to Sesame Street.
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Zing Singh
Yeah, maybe Ronnie is the first children's TV presenter we've ever had on Good Bad Billionaire. So congratulations, Ronnie. He also acts in professional plays including as Happy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Casio in Othello. He even works with a legendary director of the Bombay theater scene called Alik Podam, who described Ronnie as a young man bursting with ideas, a taskmaster who paid attention to detail. As he recalled it, one day, Ronnie just stopped turning up for rehearsals. When Alik asked about his absence, Ronnie said he was starting a company selling toothbrushes.
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Simon Jack
Toothbrushes? Why toothbrushes? Well, it all started after a trip to London to learn more about TV presenting. His father happened to be there at the same time visiting a hair and toothbrush factory for work. Ronnie decided to join him.
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Zing Singh
And in the factory, Ronnie sees what he thinks is two brand new toothbrush making machines waiting to be installed. But he's told they're headed for scrap because they've been making millions of toothbrushes for two to three years. But when he asks, he's told the machines actually have a lifespan of 10 or 20 years. He realizes in the UK machines were considered old before they'd even been broken in. Back home, they'd be cutting edge technology.
- [09:38]
Simon Jack
Now, at that point, less than 15% of the Indian population used toothbrushes. Most people used Ayurvedic tree bar. Ronnie instantly recognizes the growth potential for a simple product in a huge untapped market. And despite his age and lack of experience, he manages to get funding because the banks in those days had quotas to Lend money, which had to be dispersed to small and medium scale manufacturing to get that sector going.
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Zing Singh
So Ronnie founded Laser Brushes and in its first year, it produced about half a million toothbrushes. Over the next eight years, it grew to producing 50 million a year. Ronnie built that company into the largest suppliers of tooth in the country and he ran it for two decades until he sold it in 2004.
- [10:23]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Wow.
- [10:23]
Simon Jack
So there are two stories in one here for sure. But we're not doing him because he's a toothbrush mogul and he didn't see himself going into a factory every day of his life. But the toothbrushes gave him capital and cash flow, which allowed him to pursue something more creative because Ronnie wanted to make money from the arts instead of it just being a hobby.
- [10:40]
Zing Singh
There are probably quite a few people in the arts who are still not quite making enough money from the arts. But, you know, in the 1980s, this was a different time for India. It was pre liberal. The media was still a very nascent industry. TV sets were sold without the remote control, so you had to go right up to the set and press the buttons.
- [10:57]
Simon Jack
I'm old enough to remember doing that.
- [10:59]
Zing Singh
I vaguely remember this.
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Simon Jack
No, you don't.
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Zing Singh
I must. No, no, I actually do. There was a power button on the front.
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Simon Jack
Yeah, obviously that's it. Of course, it's about where's it going
- [11:10]
Zing Singh
to be on the back, on the remote control.
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Simon Jack
But you don't remember twisting a dial to get the three channels? Well, this was in the UK anyway. You were in Singapore at the time.
- [11:18]
Zing Singh
I don't know. No Dao's for me. The generation gap strike again, Painfully, in my case. Well, the TV sets, like we said, were without remote control and there was the single terrestrial black and white channel, doordashan, controlled by the government. So news was selective, entertainment options were sparse. But on trips abroad, Ronnie had seen the potential of cable TV offering multiple choices, which to me, he says, sounded like such a brilliant idea.
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Simon Jack
Yeah. Ronnie's 25 at this point. He's just about to marry his first wife, Manjula, with whom he would have a baby. Now, Manjula's father owned a audiovisual company and he encouraged Ronnie's entrepreneurialism and more importantly, he funded it. So in 1981, Ronnie founded his own cable TV company called Network. In the uk, we don't tend to use the word cable. TV just means TV channels delivered via cables rather than a broadcast signal, and typically offers more options than TVs with antenna.
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Zing Singh
So Ronnie went door to door around high rise towers in his area, trying to convince residents to let him set up cable television. He had a lot of doors slammed in his face. And he realized that 9 out of 10 customers were more worried about how the cable would affect their interior decorating. So he said, we became interior decorators more than cable operators for the first year. So to make sure the wiring in their homes would remain unobtrusive.
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Simon Jack
That sounds very much like my other half. No wiring on display, please. So he was like one of the original cable guys?
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Zing Singh
Yeah, literally the cable guy.
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Simon Jack
The cable guy. Now I love this. Because over the next four years he expanded to supply these cable TV to dozens of apartment blocks. But the laws in that time in India were restrictive. He couldn't dig up a road, for example, to connect the buildings. Instead, buildings had a control room in their basement with a technician who would play programs on video cassettes like vhs. And these tapes were delivered on foot from one building to the next. And there'll be noticeable gaps between shows while the technician literally ejected one cassette and put the next one in.
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Zing Singh
Wow. Talk about about analog. You think about cable as being this new frontier of technology, but there's just some guy in a basement.
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Simon Jack
I just like. I love this scene. Somehow there's the guy in the basement. Hold on. Everyone in goes the next tape.
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Zing Singh
Yep. Passing video cassettes out the window to the next guy. While TV schedules weren't even consistent, they were created for each building on a sheet of paper with shows beginning at 7pm and ending at 12.30am And Ronnie met with residents regularly to assess their viewing preferences and what they like to watch. They like to comedies, murder mysteries, cartoons, American shows like Dallas Dynasty, Star Trek. And when you think about what was going on in India at the time, you know, black and white state television. God, imagine watching Dallas for the first time.
- [14:00]
Simon Jack
I also imagine that these discussions about what people liked could be probably pretty fractious affairs. Like some people would say, oh, I like this and I like that, and you'd have this kind of massive argument about which tapes are we gonna get next week.
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Zing Singh
Yeah, imagine, you know, rather than just arguing with whoever's in your living room, you're arguing with the entire block of people who live in your apartments.
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Simon Jack
Yeah, there were some shortcuts taken, I think though. According to a technician at the company, there were no rights purchased for networks programming. Although Ronnie's never commented on this publicly. Ronnie charged 200 rupees a month for a network connection. That's around 20 US dollars then. But he knew because of the restrictive cable laws. His current business model wasn't scalable. You can't grow it quickly. And soon he had some competitors, some of whom were charging 40% less than he was.
- [14:44]
Zing Singh
He said I needed to exit it because I just thought, if I can't grow at a particular trot, what's the point? We would have still grown at about 20 to 30%, but that was not something that was exciting. So by the late 1980s, he sold the company and it struggled under new management.
- [14:59]
Simon Jack
It's interesting, 20 to 30% growth for most people would be seen as incredibly exciting kind of levels of growth. And I think that's one of the things about entrepreneurs. They think big, quick. I want 100%. They want scale, they want scale quickly. So what next for him? He gets a call from an old friend from his theatre. Remember Aliq Padamse? Well, as well as a director, Alique was the head of one of the top ad agencies in the country. He had been asked by Unilever, big multinational food and consumer goods company, to do a quiz show on state channel doordashan. And he wanted Ronnie to produce and direct it. And Ronnie thought, wow, this sounds like a business. Someone's paying me to create a television show.
- [15:38]
Zing Singh
So in 1990, Ronnie created a production company with 37,500 rupees, which was over 2,000 US dollars at the United Television Software Communications Limited or UTV, named because he wanted something that sounded corporate. Ronnie didn't launch UTV alone, though. He did it with a woman called Zarina Mehta. She was a friend of Alec's wife who worked on Ronnie's TV show. And by this point, Ronnie was divorced. He and Zarina began a relationship and then mixed business with pleasure when they launched utv.
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Simon Jack
Now, to begin with, UTV focused on producing TV shows for the only channel around Dorteshan, along with some advertising films and. But a year after founding utv, the Indian government launched major economic liberalization reforms. And this ended what was called the License Raj, which was, you know, harking back to colonial days, the strict government control over the economy. It deregulated industries, it opened India up to foreign investment. This was a very big moment. And this would have been after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. So India, with its enormous population, beginning
- [16:42]
Zing Singh
to open up huge economic opportunities. And, you know, that applied to loads of different industries, including the media. So satellite TV was allowed into India for the first time. There were new privately owned channels. Foreign players entered, like the good old BBC.
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Simon Jack
Good old BBC.
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Zing Singh
There was also a huge advertising Boom. Because multinational brands entered India and that meant TV advertising exploded. Audiences became consumers that you could sell to.
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Simon Jack
Yeah, and also probably one of the. I mean, it is the most populous country in the world right now and has had one of the fastest growing middle class, I guess. And that must have been irresistible to all sorts of companies. Ronnie, though, has sometimes downplayed the impacts of India's liberalization, saying, in the 90s, I don't think the environment was enough to make anyone ambitious and aspirational. It was actually a bit of a downer, he says. But UTV quickly won a contract on the new Indian channel ZTV of 520 episodes a year across 10 different shows. And they even launched India's daily soap opera called Shanty.
- [17:43]
Zing Singh
So in the early 90s, UTV is busy. And as a boss, Ronnie's been described as meticulous and omnipresent. He demanded his employees stay late, but he was the hardest worker there. This is quite a familiar story you'll know from other billionaires who like to stay later than their latest employee sleep
- [17:59]
Simon Jack
on the floor, Elon Musk style.
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Zing Singh
Exactly. And unlike most Indian media bosses at the time, he didn't require deference from employees. He set tight budgets. He plowed revenues back into the company to expand. And most crucially, as you can tell from the way he spent spoke about the 90s, he had an insatiable appetite for growth.
- [18:16]
Simon Jack
Yes, UTV started making in flight entertainment programs for Indian airlines which were opening up. They opened a dubbing studio. Dubbing proved pretty lucrative in a country with 22 official languages, especially when Disney contracted them to dub its library into Indian languages. And by the way, Disney will make another entry into this story. They got into something called syndication. That's where you acquire foreign programs from outside producers to sell to channels. And Ronnie was also contract attracted by Dordeshan to sell the channel's commercial airtime to advertisers.
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Zing Singh
So Ronny's diversifying his business, but at this point, UTV is still just a small team in a basement office with no actual meeting room. So set the scene and enter stage left.
- [19:01]
Simon Jack
Stage right, I think you'd prefer.
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Zing Singh
Right, okay, so enter stage right. Another one of our billionaires, Rupert Murdoch. By 1995, Rupert Murdoch's news Corp. Owned major American broadcast network Fox, and he was in the process of buying the Indian channel, Star tv, English language entertainment channel. By the way, you can listen to our episode on Rupert Murdoch to find out why India was becoming such a big market for him at the time.
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Simon Jack
So media titan Murdoch comes to India and meets Ronnie in his small basement office. And Ronnie describes the meeting as no coffee, no tea, just straight talk with Murdoch thumping the table to drive home his points. Murdoch then invites Ronnie to the News Corp. London offices. A few weeks later, Ronnie goes alone, unaware he's about to be greeted ambushed, maybe, by a seven person team. Ready?
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Zing Singh
The News Corp team are shocked. He doesn't have a lawyer or banker with him. But Ronnie decides to press ahead, closing the deal after just a day of negotiations, which he describes as like standing in an auditorium full of people with all eyes drilling into you. News Corp buys 49% of UTV for $5 million, making it the first ever foreign investment in media in India.
- [20:11]
Simon Jack
But Ronnie still owned 51%, so he's retained majority ownership and operating control. So If Murdoch bought 49% for $5 million, then Ronnie' 51% is clearly worth a little bit more than that. So we can say with some confidence that Ronnie is a millionaire in 1995, just before he turns the age of 40.
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Zing Singh
And that evening, Ronnie took a walk around Soho in the cold air to celebrate and was promptly mugged by two of the biggest blokes I've ever seen, in his words. Back at the hotel, he called Zarina, who told him, you got something today and you gave some back. Good karma. That's a good way of spinning and looking at it.
- [21:00]
Steve Rosenberg
I'm Steve Rosenberg, the BBC's Russia editor in Our man in Moscow. I'll show you what it's like being a news correspondent in Russia. As the Russian authorities wage war on Ukraine and try to silence dissent.
- [21:12]
Zing Singh
The sound of war has reverberated around Ukraine for three years.
- [21:16]
Steve Rosenberg
Dramatic geopolitical upheaval alongside threats of intimidation and imprisonment. Our man in Moscow. Watch with a subscription to BBC and the BBC app. Visit BBC.com docs to learn more.
- [21:30]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
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- [22:03]
Simon Jack
Okay, so he's a millionaire. Let's now take Ronnie Scrivala from a million to a billion. Ronnie no longer just wanted to make content for other channels. He wanted to own the channel. And we've seen this so many Times, haven't we? Oprah owning her in studio, Rihanna owning her own beauty brand. That's where the big money is, in
- [22:19]
Zing Singh
the words of Karl Marx, to means of production. Yes.
- [22:21]
Simon Jack
Right. And so the millennium Ronnie bought the Tamil language channel vjtv using funding from some American private investors who bought out News Corp's share of UTV.
- [22:33]
Zing Singh
UTV partnered with Star TV for a 5050 joint venture to run VJTV. Star handled distribution, programming and ads. But it needed UTV as there were still restrictions on how much TV foreign companies could control. Together, they expanded the channel across four South Indian languages. And in 2004, Star bought out UTV stake for just under 7 million time.
- [22:55]
Simon Jack
So Ronnie has exited. Now he's got some money, he's got some capital, he's got some hands on broadcast experience. It's also by the way, this year, 2004 that he sold his toothbrush company. You may remember that from earlier his focus now shifted to launching UTV's own channel, starting with some niche audiences.
- [23:13]
Zing Singh
India already had multiple kids channels, so you'd think a crowded market, but they were foreign channels like for instance, Cartoon Network. Zarina, who was by now Ronnie's wife, pushed for a kids channel made specifically for Indian children. So in, in 2004, UTV launched Hungama TV.
- [23:29]
Simon Jack
At first, Hungama leaned pretty heavily on Japanese animation, especially Doraemon, a robotic cat that travels back in time from the 22nd century.
- [23:38]
Zing Singh
Yes, I actually watched quite a lot of Doraemon when I was growing up in Singapore. It was massive, not just in India, but across all of Asia because it could be so easily dubbed over in the language. It was among one of the many reasons why shows like Mr. Bean got so popular in places like Singapore big because it's all essentially wordless and could be dark, so you don't really need to understand the language.
- [24:00]
Simon Jack
My equivalent of that was there was a French show which ended up being called the Magic Roundabout in the uk. Anyway, so Deraymon became a cultural phenomenon in India and wider from what you're telling me, zing. So two decades later, it's watched by 480 million people in India alone and that included adults and children.
- [24:17]
Zing Singh
You know, if there's any artists listening to this episode wondering how it is they can become a millionaire or a billionaire, make a cartoon that can be easily dubbed into any language around the world.
- [24:27]
Simon Jack
I'm sure AI is working on that as we speak.
- [24:30]
Zing Singh
Yeah, you're actually absolutely right. Well, at the time, Ronnie was also getting into film, not just children's television. He'd been a film distributor since the mid-1990s, meaning that he's the person responsible for getting a finished film into theaters. But Ronnie described the first film that UTV made as a perfect storm of questionable moviemaking. One that traded on every Bollywood stereotype under the sun. He actually refused to watch it in a theater. Instead, he had a system built in his bedroom so he could, in his words, watch and cringe alone.
- [25:00]
Simon Jack
Oh, I feel like way about looking at some of my stuff sometimes, you know, on tv.
- [25:04]
Zing Singh
Oh, never. Siren, come on, you've got the show.
- [25:07]
Simon Jack
Cringe alone.
- [25:07]
Zing Singh
Well, from what he's kind of put down in words, you can kind of tell he's a man with a bit of a sense of humor about himself.
- [25:12]
Simon Jack
Yeah, for sure.
- [25:13]
Zing Singh
He is definitely more charming than your average billionaire.
- [25:15]
Simon Jack
He was probably less happy. Probably lost a bit of his sense of humor about how the film actually did though, right?
- [25:21]
Zing Singh
Yeah, it lost 100 million rupees, which was at the time time, $2 million big money.
- [25:27]
Simon Jack
He viewed himself as a Bollywood outsider. In his autobiography, dream with your eyes open, an entrepreneurial journey, he remembers an incident at Cannes, the famous film festival in 2002. He and Zarina couldn't have been any further from the VIP section, in their words. And when he waved at a prominent Bollywood director, he was blanked. Although the director in question later told him he did wave back. Ronnie just didn't see.
- [25:49]
Zing Singh
But being outside the traditional Bollywood system meant Ronnie felt he could do things a little different in India. All the producers, whether big or small, were independent until the government granted Indian cinema official industry status in 2001. At this point, Ronnie set about turning UTV into a Hollywood style studio. And that meant creating a one stop shop for financing, producing, distributing and marketing their own films.
- [26:13]
Simon Jack
So UTV was right at the forefront of the Indian new wave with more emphasis on linear scripts, realistic drama instead of songs and dance. They release multiple films a year with growing critical commercial success.
- [26:26]
Zing Singh
But success breeds contempt. And some people in the industry weren't happy. A film writer is quoted as saying UTV wanted to muscle their way into the business. They don't talk movies and they don't behave like movie people.
- [26:38]
Simon Jack
Another one said, basically UTV understood that they were in a jungle and behaved exactly like that. When Ronnie has been asked about criticism from independent producers and creatives against the more business focused studio mole, he said if one were to tally up the track record of these creative entities in inverted commas, it would not be rosy at all. If want to make a passion project Pay for it yourself. And before you make a sweeping statement, fix your own creative accountability.
- [27:03]
Zing Singh
Ouch. Talk about a burn. In 2005, Ronnie decided it was time to take his company public, like many of our billionaires, to raise money to expand the business even further. And UTV Software Communications, listed on India's Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange. The IPO was oversubscribed, raising about $20 million with the company value being around $55 million. So it went well.
- [27:28]
Simon Jack
Yeah. And that's when you really announce yourself as a corporate entity to the world. When you sort of list your shares on a bigger.
- [27:33]
Zing Singh
That's your red carpet premiere.
- [27:34]
Simon Jack
Exactly. And it was at this point another huge media conglomerate took notice. Disney. If you remember, UTV had been dubbing Disney's content since the 1990s. In 2003, Disney had set up its own Indian operation. Wanting to get into this, as we've discussed vast and developing and growing market.
- [27:52]
Zing Singh
Disney had launched two children's channels. But they struggled behind Ronnie's channel hung up. The reason was because Disney was making decisions from their headquarters in California, so they didn't fully understand the cultural or demographic markets. So Disney cold called Ronnie asking to buy Hungama and his response was absolutely not. We spent a lot of time doing this and we have a large broadcasting agenda.
- [28:13]
Simon Jack
But Disney was persistent. In 2006, Ronnie flew to America to meet the chairman of Walt Disney International, Andy Bird. Andy was very persuasive and he offered a sweetener. Disney would buy Hungama, but also a stake in YouTub TV.
- [28:29]
Zing Singh
UTV's management were against the deal. They were worried about how much control Disney would assert. But Ronnie wanted it to happen. He wanted the cash to fund expansion, which he considered more important than complete control of the company.
- [28:41]
Simon Jack
But Disney bought Hungama anyway for $30 million less than two years after the channel was launched and bought a 15% stake in UTV. Two years later, Disney increased this to 60% with an investment of about $200 million. I think that his colleagues nervousness about Disney, you know, the creeping control of Disney was probably pretty well placed. I think most people who've gone into business with Disney find that, you know, when you get into bed with the mouse, the mouse takes over.
- [29:09]
Zing Singh
Yeah, when, when you enter the house of mouse, they don't play around well with the money from these deals. Ronnie expanded UTV rapidly over the next few years. So it worked out for him, at least for what he wanted to do from it, they launched more TV channels, including UTV World Movies, Movies UTV Action. The youth focused Bindas, which beat MTV as India's number one channel for 18 to 25 year olds.
- [29:34]
Simon Jack
Ronnie's movie division was also doing pretty well. Three films were India's official Oscar entry and they won 25 national awards. That's 10 times more than anyone else. And they also began dipping their toe into the Western market, for example, partnering with Hollywood to finance half of M. Night Shyamalan's film the Happening.
- [29:52]
Zing Singh
And then he diversified even further, launching a new vertical in a burgeoning market, mobile gaming. Now, this might sound kind of random, but I think it makes sense, right? You just want to kind of have as many fingers and as many pies to cover your bases.
- [30:07]
Podcast Advertiser/Announcer
Yeah.
- [30:07]
Simon Jack
But Ronnie said some people view the diversity of this portfolio as portraying a lack of focus. And he said no one understands the conglomerate model in India or frankly in Asia.
- [30:18]
Zing Singh
And actually, by 2011, Walt Disney India was not doing particularly well, was it?
- [30:23]
Simon Jack
Right, no. In fact, it was recording big losses. They just hadn't managed to capture the Indian market with American brands. So instead, Disney decided to buy UTV outright.
- [30:33]
Zing Singh
So Disney bought out Ronnie and all the public shares, taking the company private by delisting from the stock exchange. That cost Disney around 450 million, and that was their largest ever acquisition outside of the US at that point. And this meant that Disney valued UTV at almost $1 billion. UTV became the Walt Disney Company India.
- [30:54]
Simon Jack
But the deal got Disney a big footprint in one of the fastest growing economies. But one media analyst had a very interesting thought on why Disney spent so big on utv. And their conclusion was they bought Ronnie.
- [31:06]
Zing Singh
Wow. Ronnie personally did quite well out of that deal for himself. He made about $150 million. And he also retained much of his own control. He became managing director at Disney's India operations, ousting the previous head. And he immediately made some changes, including appointing former UTV executives to lead Disney's film and broadcasting division.
- [31:28]
Simon Jack
After two years leading this transition, Ronnie stepped down as managing director at Disney. At this point, he's 58. He's rich beyond most people's wildest dreams. But as we've seen, Ronnie is a man with an entrepreneurial drive. We discussed this before. We'd be out by now.
- [31:42]
Zing Singh
Exactly. Long out by then.
- [31:44]
Simon Jack
He took a 10 day vacation to New Zealand, his longest break that decade. And there he decided what to do for his second act, or third, if you count the toothbrushes, of course. Start building businesses again from scratch. Although he's starting not from scratch, is he? He's Got a money in his back pocket than before?
- [32:01]
Zing Singh
No. And he's got a 10 day rest as well.
- [32:03]
Simon Jack
Yeah.
- [32:04]
Zing Singh
A 10 day holiday and a pile of cash.
- [32:05]
Simon Jack
You're ready for anything.
- [32:06]
Zing Singh
I don't know. I mean, would I swap that amount of money for holidays that lasted more than 10 days? Probably not, but I'm never going to be offered that amount of money, so moot point. So over the past decade, Ronnie has diversified into film production, private equity, sports education. He's got the private equity firm Uni Laser Ventures. Remember his toothbrush company was called Laser. There's a film production company, RSVP Movies, which has produced over 40 titles including an Emmy nominated film. It's also made India's first ever Netflix original, which is a really big deal.
- [32:38]
Simon Jack
Yeah. He's got into sports as well, founding a sports business called U Sports, which has teams in kabaddi, volleyball and table tennis. He started a non profit with his wife Serena called the Suedes foundation, with the mission to lift 1 million rural Indians out of poverty every five years.
- [32:53]
Zing Singh
But by far the most profitable among his ventures is an online higher education platform he co founded in 2015 called UpGrad. Now India, as you've talked about before, is booming. One of the world's largest and youngest populations. There's widespread smartphone use, so there's been rapid growth in ed tech, which is a sector called education technology. By 2020, UpGrad had a million registered users and a year later it became what's known as a unicorn. When you raise funds that value the startup at over $1 billion.
- [33:23]
Simon Jack
Yeah. Now EdTech is a really burgeoning market and over the past few years he's been acquiring smaller ed tech companies, bringing them under the UPGR umbrella. In 2025, UpGrad reported $1.8 million of profit, significant turnaround from the year before where they reported over 30 million in losses. Probably because they're investing to start it up. In the early years of a company, you tend to lose money because you're basically plowing all in. So it turns, looks like they've turned cash flow positive in 2025. And it was that year, 2025, last year that Forbes first listed Ronnie as a billionaire worth $1.5 billion dollars, largely, I would say in part probably because of the EdTech valuation. And despite all his adventures in film, I've got a feeling that's going to provide the majority of his wealth in years to come.
- [34:23]
Zing Singh
So let's bring Ronnie's story up to date because not much has changed since 2025. He's still worth 1.5 billion billion. Last year, there was speculation that Ronnie was going to acquire one of the other big edtech unicorns, their rival, Unacademy. However, as of early 2026, it was reported the deal was called off over valuation differences. Ronnie said it's fair to say that we were unable to arrive at a mutually agreeable valuation.
- [34:48]
Simon Jack
Yeah, but let's watch this space on that one. But there is one thing Ronnie's mum wishes he would do. Saying, now that you've done all, why don't you go back to theatre? I wish you'd never left.
- [34:59]
Zing Singh
I would pay good money to see him in Death of a Salesman. Yeah. So now it's time to score Ronnie on our billionaire categories. We've got wealth, controversy, philanthropy, power and legacy. And this is a fun bit of the podcast where we score someone from 0 out of 10.
- [35:13]
Simon Jack
Yeah. We start with wealth. He lives in the same elite Mumbai neighborhood where he grew up. Spending seems to be what you would maybe describe as quiet luxury.
- [35:24]
Zing Singh
Nowhere in the same leagues as another Indian billion billionaire, Ambani, who has literally built a skyscraper for his family to live in.
- [35:31]
Simon Jack
Yeah. Ambani, to be fair, has got quite a lot more money than Ronnie. We often look at how far they've come. It's not exactly silver spoon, but he's not coming from the wrong side of the tracks, is he?
- [35:41]
Zing Singh
Yeah, his family was, I guess you call it, upwardly mobile.
- [35:44]
Simon Jack
Okay. And also 1.5 billion. He has crept into the billionaire category. So for sheer wealth and distance travel, I'm going to give him, for now, a two.
- [35:56]
Zing Singh
I think a two is generous. I feel like maybe a one.
- [35:58]
Simon Jack
Okay. All right. Harsh, harsh, harsh.
- [36:01]
Zing Singh
But maybe I'm feeling in a harsh mood today.
- [36:02]
Simon Jack
Okay. Controversy. You know, we have some very controversial characters on this pod with him, I don't think. You know, slimmer pickings, I would say.
- [36:11]
Zing Singh
Yeah. It's actually noticeably hard to find much negative things that have been said about Ronnie online. But he also seems to go to quite a great length to appear quite grounded and normal.
- [36:21]
Simon Jack
Yeah. The only major thing we could find was in 2019, Ronnie got in a high profile legal fight with India's major multiplex cinema chains after accusing them of colluding to impose unfair screening fees on producers. And he took that matter to the Competition Commission of India. The Competition Commission ultimately dismissed Ronnie's complaint against the major multiplex chain, saying there was no evidence of cartelization or an arrangement between the multiplexes that violated competition law. But all of this seems to be to me, this is just normal course of business, kind of.
- [36:55]
Zing Singh
Yeah, exactly. And when you think about the spats that take place in show business, I feel like this doesn't even quite register on that level.
- [37:01]
Simon Jack
Yeah. So I'm gonna give him a one for controversy.
- [37:04]
Zing Singh
Yeah, I think a one for controversy. A good score to get into controversy category, to be fair.
- [37:10]
Simon Jack
Philanthropy. How much are they giving back? While they were still running utv, Ronnie and Zarina set up a creche and an old age home within their office.
- [37:17]
Zing Singh
That must have made for an interesting away days. Well, after the Disney sale, he did make the Swades Foundation a really big priority. That's the charity, remember? With admission to lift a million rural Indians out of poverty every five years. And between 2023 and 2024, it provided 20,000 cataract surgeries, constructed 30,000 toilets, granted 7,000 scholarships, scaled up 7,500 youth and more. So, you know, they are doing things.
- [37:45]
Simon Jack
That's pretty good. Perhaps. Maybe not in the right section, but following a comment from a previous listener. Ronnie is a dog lover and has a golden Labrador called Sprite. We did a little tally, didn't we? How many of our billionaires are dog owners or dog lovers?
- [37:59]
Zing Singh
Yes, exactly. And to be fair, we haven't found a single cat lover amongst them.
- [38:03]
Simon Jack
Really?
- [38:04]
Zing Singh
I don't think so.
- [38:05]
Simon Jack
Where is Blofelt when you need him?
- [38:06]
Zing Singh
Getting another one of those perfect little Persian felines, I'm sure.
- [38:11]
Simon Jack
So, on philanthropy, I think he scores pretty highly. I mean, that sounds like real stuff, you know, that's not given into some shadowy kind of foundation. Foundation where no one really knows what goes on. That seems like real work. So I'm gonna give him a solid five for philanthropy so far.
- [38:26]
Zing Singh
Yeah, I think.
- [38:27]
Simon Jack
Plus, he's only got a billion. 1.5 billion, I say only. It's a crazy amount of money, but by our standards, that's not that much.
- [38:33]
Zing Singh
Exactly. And he does seem to be trying to do some good with it. So five out of ten for me, too.
- [38:37]
Simon Jack
Okay. And then power and legacy. This is, you know, will they be remembered for a long time? Do they have the power to pick up the phone to a head of state? I mean, I think probably, you know, a big force in modern Indian media introduced cable tv, first daily soap opera, a beloved kids cartoon that even you've seen.
- [38:58]
Zing Singh
Exactly. I mean, in 2008, Esquire named him among the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.
- [39:05]
Simon Jack
Wow.
- [39:05]
Zing Singh
Which is quite the kudos, Ronnie said on his part. It's nice. And then you move on.
- [39:10]
Simon Jack
I kind of like that attitude. Okay, well that's. I mean, if Esquire called him among the 75 most influential people of the 21st century, he's we're not even at
- [39:18]
Zing Singh
the end of the 21st century.
- [39:19]
Simon Jack
We need to give him quite a high score. He revolutionized Indian media. It is the most populous country in the world.
- [39:25]
Zing Singh
World.
- [39:26]
Simon Jack
Seven for me.
- [39:27]
Zing Singh
Yeah, I actually think probably an eight given how important India is and how important it will be in the rest of the 21st century.
- [39:34]
Simon Jack
So then the big question for you, our listeners, is he good, bad or just another billionaire? What do you think? Email us at Good Bad billionaire. That's all one word@BBC.com or drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001-917-686-1176 and three.
- [39:52]
Zing Singh
Tell us what you think and don't forget to include your name as we may read out your message on a future episode.
- [39:57]
Simon Jack
Yeah, get in touch.
- [39:58]
Zing Singh
We've had an email from Aishwarya about our episode on Scale AI founder Lucy Guo. She says if Lucy were my friend, I'd find it pretty annoying if she was freeloading at my expense. That's the heart of it, isn't it? Her frugality seems to kick in when the expense borne by others isn't obvious. For example, she shops at Shein. Shein is well known for being a high volume producer of fast fashion that's terrible for the environment and is known for poor labor conditions. Now we should note here that Shein has previously previously told the BBC it's committed to ensuring fair and dignified treatment of all workers within the supply chain and it's investing tens of millions of dollars in strengthening governance and compliance.
- [40:34]
Simon Jack
Yeah, well, she goes on to say PJ's private jets are great for the convenience of the billionaire, but the environmental costs aren't borne by them either. So despite having enough money to be able to make better decisions at every turn, she's still participating in it. Someone with a $30 million home choosing to have free lunch is certainly an interesting person personality.
- [40:53]
Zing Singh
She also goes on to add, I guess she's just a person and quite young, which must be taken into account. She's just got a lot more money and is a lot more visible than the average young person who's likely also making similar decisions choosing to drive instead of walk or fly instead of taking a train, even if it's an option. Maybe a new category termed Are they being a responsible consumer can be added to the scoring criteria for separating the really good billionaires from the others. That's an interesting suggestion, Aishwarya. Thank you for making such great content. You've tremendously improved my commute.
- [41:24]
Simon Jack
We are here to serve.
- [41:30]
Zing Singh
So who do we have on the next episode?
- [41:32]
Simon Jack
Well, Singh, it is time to put your balls on the dashboard.
- [41:36]
Zing Singh
In the words of the man that
- [41:37]
Simon Jack
we are about to talk about, that is not me saying that. That is the words of a racing car supremo.
- [41:44]
Zing Singh
Yes. You may notice him as the team principal from Mercedes Formula One and the undisputed star of Netflix's Drive To Survive show.
- [41:52]
Simon Jack
He is Toto Wolf. Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast produced by Hannah Hufford. The researcher is Hannah Ramazani, the editor is Paul Smith, and it's a BBC Studios production for the BBC World Service. The senior commissioning producer is Sarah Green and the commissioning editor is John Manelle.