DreamDTH Explains: A guide to devotional, music and youth channels in India

English music channel: Vh1 the only one

Now Vh1 by Viacom18 may not air any youth dramas like its counterpart MTV, but it is by all means a youth channel, as it caters to a young crowd in their teens, twenties and thirties with the latest Western music hits — in addition to some Korean ones. It is the only Indian TV channel to have a home for the Lady Gagas, Taylor Swifts and BTSes of the world today, and has been doing so for 18 years now, having been launched on New Year’s Day 2005 — well before the Viacom18 and Colors brands came into existence in 2007/8. In July–August 2020, Vh1 had also hosted the ‘Vh1 Sound Nation League’, a weeklong battle of homegrown music talent, but it has not organised any such events before or since, though Colors Infinity, its sister English GEC, has hosted the singing reality show The Stage in the past.

Interestingly, it has maintained the same slogan (Get With It) and mostly the same logo since its launch in 2005, aside from a colour change in 2016 to purple, and it has not adopted the ‘VH+1’ logo of its international counterparts that was introduced in 2013 — not that a rebrand would be required as its appearance has always kept with the times. An HD version was launched in 2017, along with MTV and the Hindi movie channel Colors Cineplex launching HD feeds — shortly after the launch of MTV Beats SD/HD in 2016, replacing Pepsi MTV Indies SD/HD — but only Tata Play and Sun Direct have been able to add it among DTH operators.

Vh1 is now the only one of its kind left, as other English music channels have left India: not that there were many of them to begin with, unlike Hindi music channels which have always been plentiful. 9XO from 9X Media ‘suspended’ operations in May 2020, never to come back, even though its social media handles remained active for two years thereafter. Nat Geo Music SD/HD — which, unlike Vh1 and 9XO, is not an Indian channel, as it is run by The Walt Disney Company’s subsidiary Fox Networks Group internationally — was withdrawn from India in June 2019 along with Nat Geo People SD/HD and BabyTV SD. (Though BabyTV HD was able to avoid the fate of the other channels, and remain on air in India for nearly four years, this will not be the case for much longer, as it will cease to be available in India shortly.) In addition, Zee Trendz — a fashion/lifestyle channel which also showed English music — ceased broadcasting in 2014; there have not been any other English music channels in the country.

Youth channels: MTV and Zing in Hindi, Vijay Takkar in Tamil

Now that it has been several years since Channel V ceased to exist, and Bindass no longer shows any youth dramas, MTV from Viacom18 and Zing from Zee are the only true Hindi ‘youth’ channels left today. MTV is the far more successful one of the two — indeed, it calls itself ‘India’s number one youth brand’, and justifiably so — thanks to its long-running reality series, Roadies and Splitsvilla, which are complemented by some dramas like Kaisi Yeh Yaariaan and music reality shows like MTV Hustle. In the past it has also aired India’s Next Top Model, as well as music shows like Coke Studio and MTV Unplugged, in addition to social messaging shows like MTV Nishedh. These are also aired on Voot, one of Viacom18’s streaming services (which will be merging with JioCinema in a few months), which already has a large fan following among the younger generation, thanks to Colors’ hit reality show Bigg Boss among other shows.

Zing, on the other hand, has not been too successful in comparison — though it received a brand-new makeover in May 2022 — but it nevertheless shows a blend of Bollywood music, youth dramas and the occasional Hindi movie. In the past, Channel V and Bindass — the former owned by Fox-owned Star until its closure, the latter originally owned by Disney India and now part of Disney Star — were known for their numerous youth drama series and reality shows, which peaked in popularity during the early and mid-2010s. Channel V’s famous shows included Paanch, Sadda Haq, Gumrah and Dil Dosti Dance, but these were abruptly halted during a brand refresh in mid-2016 which saw it shift back to a music-driven schedule — only to cease broadcasting in 2018. Bindass, too, was known for youth series like Emotional Atyachaar and Girl in the City, but these stopped around 2017 as it turned into a Hindi music channel.

Disney Star had planned to shut down Bindass for a long time, but it U-turned with its latest channel launch announcement in December 2022, handing it a new lease of life, even though it has largely lost most of its brand value. The Telugu-language Star Maa Music is the broadcaster’s only other music channel in any language, as the Tamil-language Vijay Music no longer exists. Still, the network replaced the struggling Vijay Music — which had deviated from a pure music schedule and also showed some singing reality shows and the odd movie — with Vijay Takkar in October 2022, which is positioned as a youth channel (indeed, the first non-Hindi youth channel) but nevertheless has a diverse programming schedule with several movies.

However, whether such a strategy is sustainable in the long run is questionable, since such niche channels have not been too popular in non-Hindi regional languages, especially in the South. In any case, OTT platforms have gradually become the preferred choice among young Indians, both in Hindi regions — including major national streamers like Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar and SonyLIV, as well as smaller ones like ALTBalaji, Ullu and the Times Group’s MX Player — and in regional languages, with Aha (Telugu), Blacksheep Tamil’s BS Value, Hoichoi (Bengali) and Planet Marathi gaining traction slowly but steadily. Creators like The Viral Fever (TVF) have tapped into the pulse of the country like few others have, and their influence has been tremendous, covering a far broader audience base than many TV channels.

Comparison of music/youth channels across broadcasters and languages

To conclude this article, we present a table of broadcasters that have a presence in the music/youth genre across several languages. This will help to provide a bird’s-eye view of the important players, both big and small, several of whom (like 9X Media and Media Worldwide) have completely committed themselves to music and therefore do not have a presence in any other genre.

Broadcasters with only a single music channel — such as Zee (with Zing), Times (with Zoom) and SABGroup (with Mastiii) — are not mentioned in this table, though they have several channels in other genres and languages. Nor are local language-specific networks which operate only in one language, such as Ortel Communications in Odisha, which operates Tarang Music, and Pride East Entertainment in Assam, which operates the Ramdhenu music channel. Gujarati is the only major regional language without any music channels — or indeed, any non-news channel other than Colors Gujarati (Cinema), DD Girnar and the devotional channel Lakshya TV, as mentioned on Page 1.

Of course, this is far from a complete picture of the music channels in each language, since there are usually several other music channels. For example, Punjabi is a music-loving language — with world-famous artists like Diljit Dosanjh, Guru Randhawa and Jassie Gill — and so it goes without saying that it has several music channels like PTC Chak De, PTC Music, Balle Balle and Punjabi Hits, in addition to 9X Tashan and MH One from the above table. Tamil, similarly, has a wide range of music channels, from Sun Music, to Isai Aruvi, to Jaya Max, to Raj Musix Tamil, to Tunes 6, to 7S Music, to Mega Musiq, and many more. Details for each regional language will be provided in subsequent articles in due course.

Nevertheless, the above table is useful for understanding which broadcasters have a music/youth channel in which languages, and shines a spotlight on the smaller but established music broadcasters like 9X Media and MH One which have built their brand over decades. Despite the tidal shifts in viewers’ preferences and the steady shrinkage of music channels, both music and devotional channels remain an important part of the Indian TV landscape, and provide popular entertainment and spiritual upliftment, respectively, to everyone.