It has been said that the nineties are to India what the sixties are to America. In a country with new, liberal policies, there was a sudden boom of creativity in various fields like music and television. Combining both were Channel V and MTV – places where the country’s urban youth found content that they could relate to.
Channel V, besides being a launchpad for a lot of Bollywood celebrities, produced content especially for millennials. It was the place to go for the latest Indipop chartbusters or funny, quirky vignettes. We all remember tuning in to Channel V in the early 2000s for whatever our jam was. VJs like Meghna Reddy and Sophia Haque became stars in their own right, Lola Kutty became an icon, and artistes became Indipop sensations overnight.
But then, all of a sudden, it stopped.
In 2012, Channel V stopped making music-related content. Even the channel’s most loved character, Lola Kutty, had disappeared. Instead, there was a slew of seemingly low-budget and supposedly youth-oriented fictional shows like Pretty Little Liars ripoff Best Friends Forever?, as well as extremely mainstream reality shows like Stealing Ur Girlfriend.
Four years later, Channel V has made an announcement that lit up the faces of the older generation of its viewers. Starting from July 1 this year, Channel V will resume producing music-based content. While this makes us extremely happy, we also hope that Channel V restores itself to its full former glory by bringing back things about it that we miss most.
The undisputed queen of Channel V, Lola Kutty.
Jawalkar without a V
Udham Singh
Popstars
Banjo and Macho
Simpu Singh
Brought to you Bai
And lots and lots of Indipop that makes us nostalgic about these people!
While all of this might be wishful thinking, we really hope Channel V does for Indipop today what it did back in the nineties. We want to see contemporary pop music, we want to see quirky, funny characters, we want to see funny sketches and vignettes, and maybe even short fiction and non-fiction series. Please listen to us, Channel V!