If you ask any Indian about the most common means of entertainment in India, you would get to hear the word television the most number of times. Indeed television plays a great role in providing daily entertainment to Indians. Moreover, it is sometimes also held as the binding glue in most Indian families, since every member of the family comes together to watch the popular prime time shows of Indian television. Besides this, television is also the primary source of information and news for Indians, with a large number of full time news channels airing in multiple languages. The genre which rules the market of Indian television is Hindi general entertainment. There are many Hindi general entertainment channels which are mainly known for airing soap operas, sitcoms and family oriented reality shows. However, in the last few years a few irregular shifts have been observed in terms of viewers’ preferences in Indian television. In this regard, the sudden boom in the American television industry can be cited as a factor.
Today, the American television industry is doing very well with quite a number of high quality dramas and comedies being produced every season. The advent of web streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have triggered the production of a large number of TV shows that are based on highly creative and offbeat ideas. Needless to say, the Indian audience is getting highly attracted to those shows. Another genre of American shows which is steadily gaining immense popularity among Indian viewers is English comedy. English comedy is generally based on stand up sketches, gags and sitcoms. Despite the cultural differences between the Indian and American societies, Indians enjoy watching American comedy shows. A number of American sitcoms have started introducing Indian characters in their stories to further attract the Indian audience. You would definitely observe this trend if you go through the programmes of Comedy Central.
The popularity of Comedy Central has become so high in India that Viacom 18 decided to introduce a stage show based on the channel, and Comedy Central Chuckle Festival was launched. This is nothing but a platform for the budding stand-up comedians of India to showcase their talent and earn their share of fame. The extraordinary performers in the festival are also provided with the opportunity to participate in the shows of Comedy Central. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the English shows are giving a tough competition to the Hindi language shows on Indian television.
Another change which has been noticed in television entertainment is that the modern audience is catching up with their favourite shows on the online platforms instead of watching it on television. To capitalize on this change, Viacom 18 decided to launch its own online platform by the name of Voot. Voot is an on demand content streaming service in which programmes from all the channels of Viacom 18 are available. Needless to say, it is a download hit among the youth.
