English entertainment in India Indian television never had much to offer in terms of entertainment in English language. The primary linguistic medium of entertainment in India has always been Hindi. In the last few years, there has been tremendous progress in the domain of television entertainment with the advent of a number of channels in India’s regional languages. But, English entertainment is still in its nascent stage barring the channels that show foreign cinema. There are quite a few channels dedicated to English movies, but the introduction of on-demand streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime has posed a serious threat to their TRPs as they offer much more variety in terms of genre, type and content. Since the last year, English comedy has emerged as a popular genre. It is generally based on stand-up sketches and gags, which is mainly enjoyed by the urban youth of India. There has also been an increase in the number of American sitcoms being watched in India. Some of these sitcoms have also started introducing Indian characters in their stories, attracting the Indian audience further. This is evident from the popularity of Comedy Central. Viacom 18 started experimenting with English channels with MTV, which played popular American chartbusters throughout the day along with Bollywood numbers and trending numbers from independent pop and rock bands. As the popularity of English music grew among Indian audiences, the network launched a sister channel named VH1 dedicated to it. Today, VH1 is highly popular among music lovers for it is the only channel where you can catch all the latest American chartbusters. Viacom 18 also identified the gap in the market in terms of English drama. So, it diversified its flagship entertainment channel Colors into an English drama channel Colors Infinity. You would find quality drama shows, thrillers and reality shows on Colors Infinity, all in English. This is definitely a good news for the English-speaking population in India. Viacom 18 is trying to create more and more original programmes for Colors Infinity, which can appeal to Indian sensibilities in a better way. Although English entertainment still has a long way to go, it has achieved great success in the last few years, thanks to Viacom 18.
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