As gulf news celebrates its 30th anniversary, we find out what the prominent people in the UAE think about the progress the nation and the newspaper has made
Think about every big music concert you've been to in Dubai and chances are Richard and Padma Coram, owners of entertainment and events company The Talent Brokers, were the people who made it happen.
From music icons in the West - Elton John, Rod Stewart, Chuck Berry, Bryan Adams, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo -to stars of the East such as Aishwarya Rai, Shah Rukh Khan, Amr Diab and Ragheb Alameh, the duo has promoted more than 6,000 projects in the Middle East, South Asia and the Far East.
Richard came to Dubai as an 18-year-old when English language radio and television stations were being launched, and the expatriate community was burgeoning.
"It was 1978, I had just turned 18 and I remember looking at the atlas in my parents' house to see exactly where in the world Dubai was. It wasn't even listed, as the UAE had only come into existence in 1971, and my parents' atlas was ancient. I would have found it if I had looked under the Trucial States," he said.
With only one radio station, Dubai FM 92, in operation he did the breakfast show, and at night worked in television as a news and continuity presenter for the now defunct Channel 33.
As he was also doing voice-overs for television and radio he became a household name in Dubai, which led him to host product launches and other entertainment events.
Setting up business
After bringing over a group called The Bootleg Beatles, which the city's music lovers adored, he decided to set up his own business, The Talent Brokers.
"That was a turning point for me - it was then that I realised there was a market in Dubai for entertainment. I could see that people wanted and needed to be entertained and that's when the seed was sown for the foundations of my company."
Richard said he has always had a close association with Gulf News - he used to write the music column for Al Juma magazine, which came out on Fridays during the 1980s.
Close relationship
Padma, too, has had a long association with the newspaper. When she arrived in Dubai in 1985 from India, she joined Emirates as a cabin crew member and left the company as a senior purser.
In addition to working at Emirates she did modelling assignments and was on the cover of Gulf News' Gulf Weekly magazine, which replaced Al Juma magazine.
Padma was then headhunted by Channel V/MTV to handle the PR and marketing for the Middle East and Pakistan.
"There was no other VJ presence except me, and we worked closely with Gulf News' youth magazine providing content for them."
Padma discovered Pakistani pop music "which was very big at the time. We got record deals going and organised road shows. People had never seen VJs before and when Channel V/MTV introduced them here people were shocked."
After a public relations stint with the White House she joined The Talent Brokers as a partner in 1998.
Padma says bringing international acts to Dubai has sometimes been a challenge.
She recalled one such instance when The Talent Brokers first brought out the Ministry of Sound in 1997: "They were very hot and hip in those days. Dubai discotheques at the time allowed people to make dedications and song requests. The DJs got very bad press for refusing people's requests."
However, she said Dubai had grown in leaps and bounds.
"With every year that passes it's like 15 years have gone by. This country has done in 37 years what other countries have taken 500 years to do."
