Youth Inc.

Let the music play on

Young Indians still want their MTV, not just on television screens

In the 1990s, teenagers in the metros almost uniformly followed the same routine on returning from school or college: you threw down your bags and switched on the television. This generation didn’t want to channel surf, although having a dozen channels to flick through was still a novelty. You would stay glued to just one channel — MTV — and watch the latest music videos from the US, the UK, Australia and even China and Hong Kong. You were cool if you watched MTV, could hum the latest numbers, could describe the whacky filler ads (“…so this neon skull transforms into a hammer and pounds in MTV-shaped nails…”) and knew the latest fashion trends, thanks to hours of gazing upon VJs Danny McGill and Nonie.