Indian Idol

Indian Idol
Logo as of 2020
Genre	Reality television
Created by	Simon Fuller
Directed by	Vandy (2007–present) Monisha Jaising Vaid (2010–present) Partha Thakur (2010–present) Vishal Mull (2005–06) Niret Alva (2005–06) Nikhil J Alva (2005–06) Nivedith T Alva (2007) Bhavna Israni (2007–13) Indrajit Ray (2007) Satish Datt (2011–12) Ujjwal Anand (2012–13)
Presented by	Mini Mathur (2004–07, 2012) Hussain Kuwajerwala (2007–2015) Aman Verma (2004–06) Meiyang Chang (2008–09) Abhijeet Sawant (2010) Prajakta Shukre (2010) Asha Negi (2015) Karan Wahi (2013, 2017) Paritosh Tripathi (2017) Manish Paul (2018-20) Jay Bhanushali (2018) Aditya Narayan (2019-present)
Judges	Shreya Ghoshal (2013) Anu Malik (2004–2018, 2019) Salim Merchant (2010–2012) Asha Bhosle (2012) Farah Khan (2004–06, 2016–17) Sonu Nigam (2004–06, 2016–17) Alisha Chinai (2007) Udit Narayan (2007) Javed Akhtar (2007–09) Sonali Bendre (2008–09) Kailash Kher (2008–09) Sonakshi Sinha (2015) Shalmali Kholgade (2015) Sunidhi Chauhan (2010-2012) Shekhar Ravjiani(2013) Vishal Dadlani (2013-present) Neha Kakkar (2018-present) Javed Ali (2018) Himesh Reshammiya (2020-present)
Theme music composer	Julian Gingell Barry Stone Cathy Dennis
Country of origin	India
Original languages	English Hindi
No. of seasons	12
No. of episodes	311
Production
Executive producers	Anupama Mandloi (2010–present) Niret Alva (2005–09) Nikhil J Alva (2005–09)
Producers	Namit Sharma (2010–present) Ashok (2008–09)
Production locations	Initial auditions: Various Mumbai auditions: National Centre of Performing Arts, Mumbai
Running time	1–2 hrs
Production companies	ARSenic's Business Empire(2010–present) Fremantlemedia India Miditech Pvt. Ltd. (2005–09)
Distributor	FremantleMedia Enterprises
Release
Original network	SET
Picture format	576i 1080i (HDTV)
Audio format	Dolby Digital 5.1
Original release	30 October 2004 (2004-10-30) – present
External links
Website

Indian Idol is the Indian version of the Pop Idol format that has aired on Sony Entertainment Television since 2004. The show has spawned spin-off like Indian Idol Junior, which replaced the show for the seventh and eight seasons. The current winner is Sunny Hindustani

Summary

Season	Year	Channel	Host	Contestants	Winner	Runner-up
1	2004–05	Sony TV	Aman Verma Mini Mathur	12	Abhijeet Sawant	Amit Sana
2	2005–06			12	Sandeep Acharya	N. C. Karunya
3	2007		Hussain Kuwajerwala Mini Mathur	13	Prashant Tamang	Amit Paul
4	2008–09		Hussain Kuwajerwala Meiyang Chang	12	Sourabhee Debbarma	Kapil Thapa
5	2010		Hussain Kuwajerwala Abhijeet Sawant	13	Sreerama Chandra Mynampati	Bhoomi Trivedi and Rakesh Maini
6	2012		Hussain Kuwajerwala Mini Mathur	16	Vipul Mehta	Amit Kumar and Devandra Pal Singh
Indian Idol Junior Season 1	2013		Karan Wahi Mandira Bedi	11	Anjana Padmanabhan	Debanjana Karmakar
Indian Idol Junior Season 2	2015		Hussain Kuwajerwala Asha Negi	13	Ananya Nanda	Nahid Afrin
9	2016–17		Karan Wahi Paritosh Tripathi	14	LV Revanth	Khuda Baksh
10	2018		Manish Paul	14	Salman Ali	Ankush Bhardwaj
11	2019		Aditya Narayan	17	Sunny Hindustani	Rohit Shyam Raut
12	2020-		Aditya Narayan	15	TBC	TBC

Season 1

• Judges

Anu Malik
Farah Khan
Sonu Nigam

• Host

Aman Verma
Mini Mathur

Top 12 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Abhijeet Sawant	Mumbai	Winner
Amit Sana	Bhilai	1st Runner-up
Rahul Vaidya	Mumbai	2nd Runner-up
Prajakta Shukre	Maharashtra	3rd Runner-up
Ravinder Ravi	Ludhiana	Eliminated 8th
Aditi Paul	Chennai	Eliminated 7th
Mukesh Pancholi	Faridabad	Eliminated 6th
Harish Moyal	Itanagar	Eliminated 5th
Rahul Saxena	Ghaziabad	Eliminated 4th
Amit Tandon	Kolkata	Eliminated 3rd
Vishal Kothari	Kolkata	Eliminated 2nd
Priyanka Venkateswar	Mumbai	Withdrew

Season 2

• Judges

Anu Malik
Farah Khan
Sonu Nigam

• Host

Mini Mathur

Top 12 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Sandeep Acharya	Rajasthan	Winner
N. C. Karunya	Hyderabad	1st Runner-up
Anuj Sharma	Himachal Pradesh	2nd Runner-up
Amey Date	Mumbai	Eliminated 9th
Antara Mitra	West Bengal	Eliminated 8th
Meenal Jain	Indore	Eliminated 7th
Ravi K. Tripathi	Uttar Pradesh	Eliminated 6th
Panna Gill	Punjab	Eliminated 5th
Monali Thakur	Kolkata	Eliminated 4th
Neha Kakkar	Rishikesh	Eliminated 3rd
Yashashree Bhave	Satara	Eliminated 2nd
Sagar Sawarkar	Mumbai	Eliminated 1st

Season 3

• Judges

Javed Akhtar
Anu Malik
Alisha Chinai
Udit Narayan

• Host

Hussain Kuwajerwala
Mini Mathur

Top 13 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Prashant Tamang	Darjeeling	Winner
Amit Paul	Shillong	1st Runner-up
Emon Chatterjee	Kolkata	2nd Runner-up
Ankita Mishra	Kanpur	3rd Runner-up
Meiyang Chang	Dhanbad	4th runner- up
Pooja Chatterjee	Dhanbad	Eliminated 8th
Deepali Kishore	Patna	Eliminated 7th
Abhishek Kumar	Mumbai	Eliminated 6th
Parleen Singh Gill	Ambala	Eliminated 5th
Charu Semwal	Dehradun	Eliminated 4th
Smita Adhikari	Kolkata	Eliminated 3rd
Jolly Das	Kolkata	Eliminated 2nd
Richa Aneja	Punjab	Eliminated 1st

Season 4

The fourth season of Indian Idol was aired on Nepal TV from 19 September 2008 to 1 March 2009. For the first time in Indian Idol history, there were two women among the top three finalists. Sourabhee Debbarma who hails from Agartala, Tripura won the competition and became the first female contestant to do so. By doing so, she also won a contract of Rs. 1 crore with Sony Entertainment Television and a TATA Winger. She released an album, Meherbaan, as per a contract with Sony. Kapil Thapa was runner-up while Torsha Sarkar finished third.

One of the contestants, Bhavya Pandit, received an offer to sing the song "Aaja Lehraate" for the film What's Your Raashee, alongside singer Gautam Mrinaal.

• Judges

Javed Akhtar
Anu Malik
Sonali Bendre
Kailash Kher

• Host

Hussain Kuwajerwala
Meiyang Chang

Top 14 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Sourabhee Debbarma	Agartala	Winner
Kapil Thapa	Dehradun	1st Runner-up
Torsha Sarkar	Bhagalpur	2nd Runner-up
Rajdeep Chatterjee	Jamshedpur	Eliminated 11th
Remo Ghosh	Dimapur	Eliminated 10th
Bhavya Pandit	Pune	Eliminated 9th
Prasenjit Kosambi	Kolhapur	Eliminated 8th
Bhanu Pratap Singh	Jaipur	Eliminated 7th
Mohit Lawani	Delhi	Eliminated 6th
Kuldeep Singh Chauhan	Banda	Eliminated 5th
Priyanka Negi	Dehradun	Eliminated 4th
Shini Kalvint	Gwalior	Eliminated 3rd
Tulika Ganguly	Faridabad	Eliminated 2nd
Ananya Mishra	Lucknow	Eliminated 1st

Season 5

• Judges

Anu Malik
Sunidhi Chauhan
Salim Merchant

• Host

Hussain Kuwajerwala
Abhijeet Sawant

Top 13 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Sreerama Chandra Mynampati	Hyderabad	Winner
Bhoomi Trivedi	Gujarat	1st Runner-up
Rakesh Maini	Mumbai	1st Runner-up
Swaroop Khan	Rajasthan	Eliminated 10th
Shivam Pathak	Gujarat	Eliminated 9th
Tia Kar	Mumbai	Eliminated 8th
Naushad Ali	Rajasthan	Eliminated 7th
Shashi Suman	Patna	Eliminated 6th
Arpita Khan	West Bengal	Eliminated 5th
Yashraj Kapil	Faridabad	Eliminated 4th
Manisha Karmakar	Kolkata	Eliminated 3rd
Meghna Kumar	Jhansi	Eliminated 2nd
Vishwas Rai	Allahabad	Eliminated 1st

Note: Sreerama, Rakesh, and Bhoomi were the top 3. Sreeram was crowned the winner without announcing the 1st and 2nd runner-ups.

Season 6

The sixth season aired on Sony TV from 1 June 2012 to 1 September 2012. The winner of the sixth season was Vipul Mehta who received the highest number of votes.

• Judges

Anu Malik
Sunidhi Chauhan
Salim Merchant
Asha Bhosle

• Host

Hussain Kuwajerwala
Mini Mathur

On 23 June 2012, the judges selected the top 16 contestants to perform in the Gala Rounds.

These contestants were:

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Vipul Mehta	Amritsar	Winner
Amit Kumar		Runner-up
Devender Pal Singh		Runner-up
Amitabh Narayan
Amrita Panda
Charit Dixit
Deeksha Piyush
Deepak Maher
Kaushik Deshpande
Kritika Tanwar
Poorvi Koutish	Chandigarh
Ravi Kumar Mishra
Ritika Raj
Saumya Mishra
Simran Kaur
Sohini Mishra

Indian Idol Junior Season 1

• Judges

Vishal Dadlani
Shreya Ghoshal
Shekhar Ravjiani

• Host

Karan Wahi
Mandira Bedi

Top 11 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Anjana Padmanabhan	Bengaluru	Winner
Debanjana Karmakar	Kolkata	1st Runner-up
Anmol Jaswal	Jammu and Kashmir	2nd Runner-up
Nirvesh Dave	Ahmedabad	3rd Runner-up
Akash Sharma	Harayana	Eliminated 7th
Aryan Das	Cuttack	Eliminated 6th
Sonakshi Kar	Kolkata	Eliminated 5th
Priyam Borpatragohain	Assam	Eliminated 4th
Eman Chaudhary	Assam	Eliminated 3rd
Sugandha Date	Nagpur	Eliminated 2nd
Sankalp Yaduwanshi	Moradabad	Eliminated 1st

Indian Idol Junior Season 2

Indian Idol Junior Season 2 Started 30th May 2015, And the Last Episode Was 6th September 2015.

• Judges

Salim Merchant
Sonakshi Sinha
Vishal Dadlani

• Host

Hussain Kuwajerwala
Asha Negi

Top 13 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Ananya Nanda	Bhubaneswar	Winner
Nahid Afrin	Assam	1st Runner-up
Nithyashree Venkataramanan	Chennai	2nd Runner-up
Vaishnav Girish	Kerala	Eliminated 10th
Moti Khan	Rajasthan	Eliminated 9th
Niharika Nath	Agartala	Eliminated 8th
Ranita Banerjee	Kolkata	Eliminated 7th
Sreelakshmi Belmannu	Bangalore	Eliminated 6th
Ajay Brijwasi	Mathura	Eliminated 5th
Yumna Ajin	Kerala	Eliminated 4th
Surendra Singh Panwar	Rajasthan	Eliminated 3rd
Vidhi Jaswal	Jammu and Kashmir	Eliminated 2nd
Shubhankar	Kolkata	Eliminated 1st

Season 9

• Judges

Anu Malik
Farah Khan
Sonu Nigam

• Host

Karan Wahi
Paritosh Tripathi

Top 14 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
L. V. Revanth	Hyderabad	Winner
Khuda Baksh	Punjab	1st Runner-up
PVNS Rohit	Hyderabad	2nd Runner-up
Maalavika Sunder	Chennai	Eliminated 11th
Mohit Chopra	New Delhi	Eliminated 10th
Manya Narang	New Delhi	Eliminated 9th
Hardeep Singh	Ludhiana	Eliminated 8th
R P Shravan	Chennai	Eliminated 7th
Tajinder Singh	Faridabad	Eliminated 6th
Jeli Kayi	Itanagar	Eliminated 5th
Bharti Gupta	Ghaziabad	Eliminated 4th
Mansi Bhardwaj	New Delhi	Eliminated 3rd
Stuti Tiwari	Kolkata	Eliminated 2nd
Saumya Mishra	Renukut	Eliminated 1st
Rahul Deb	Kolkata	Eliminated

Season 10

• Judges

Javed Ali replaced Anu Malik
Neha Kakkar
Vishal Dadlani

• Host

Manish Paul

Top 14 Contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Salman Ali	Mewat	Winner
Ankush Bhardwaj	Kotgarh	1st Runner-up
Neelanjana Ray	Kolkata	2nd Runner-up
Nitin Kumar	Una	3rd Runner-up
Vibhor Parashar	New Delhi	4th Runner-up
Kunal Pandit	Mumbai	Eliminated 9th
Renu Nagar	Alwar	Eliminated 8th
Soumya Chakraborty	Kolkata	Eliminated 7th
Avanti Patel	Mumbai	Eliminated 6th
Saurabh Valmiki	Lakhimpur	Eliminated 5th
Biswajit Mohapatra	Odisha	Eliminated 4th
Krishnakali Saha	Tripura	Eliminated 3rd
Indira Das	Kolkata	Eliminated 2nd
Sonia Gazmer	Kolkata	Eliminated 1st

Season 11

The 11th season started to air on 12 October 2019 on Sony TV. It is being hosted by singer Aditya Narayan. Neha Kakkar has returned as one of the judges on popular demand along with Vishal Dadlani and Anu Malik, who came back to the show as a judge after his suspension from the judge panel for Me Too allegations. He has then been replaced by Himesh Reshammiya.

• Judges

Himesh Reshammiya replaced Anu Malik
Vishal Dadlani
Neha Kakkar

• Host

Aditya Narayan

Top 15 contestants + 2 wild card entries are:-

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Sunny Hindustani	Bathinda	Winner
Rohit Shyam Raut	Latur	1st Runner-up
Ankona Mukherjee	Bankura	2nd Runner-up
Ridham Kalyan	Amritsar	3rd Runner-up
Adriz Ghosh	Murshidabad	4th Runner-up
Shahzaan Mujeeb	Aligarh	Eliminated 12th
Rishabh Chaturvedi	Amritsar	Eliminated 11th
Stuti Tiwari	New Delhi	Eliminated 10th
Jannabi Das	New Delhi	Eliminated 9th
Azmat Hussain	Jaipur	Eliminated 8th
Chetna Bharadwaj	Ghaziabad	Eliminated 7th
Kaivalya Kejkar	Nagpur	Eliminated 6th
Shubhadeep Das	Kolkata	Eliminated 5th
Stuti Tiwari	New Delhi	Eliminated 4th
Nidhi Kumari	Jamshedpur	Eliminated 3rd
Chelsi Behura	Orissa	Eliminated 2nd
Pallav Singh	Ballia	Eliminated 1st

Season 12

The 12th season started on 28 November 2020.

• Judges

Himesh Reshammiya
Vishal Dadlani
Neha Kakkar

• Host

Due To Covid Positive

Aditya Narayan

Replaced By

Ritvik Dhanjani For two weeks

Top 15 contestants

Name	Hometown	Elimination
Pawandeep Rajan	Uttarakhand	-
Shanmukha Priya	Visakhapatnam	-
Sawai Bhatt	Nagaur	-
Ashish Kulkarni	Pune	-
Anjali Gaikwad	Ahmednagar	-
Mohd. Danish	Muzaffarnagar	-
Nihal Tauro	Mangalore	-
Arunita Kanjilal	Kolkata	-
Sayli Kamble	Pune	-
Nachiket Lele	Kalyan	Eliminated 6th
Sireesha Bhagavatula	Visakhapatnam	Eliminated 5th
Anushka Banerjee	Chandigarh	Eliminated 4th
Vaishnav Girish	Thrissur	Eliminated 3rd
Samyak Prasana Das	Delhi	Eliminated 2nd
Sahil Solanki	Hisar	Eliminated 1st

Controversy and credibility

Indian Idol show has been in the news for controversies. The contestants say that the work of increasing the TRP of the show is done by showing them the poor householder on TV. The show is just a means of earning money and playing with the lives of talented contestants.