India's Got Talent (often abbreviated as IGT) is an Indian television talent show broadcast on Colors TV, part of the international Got Talent franchise originally created by British entertainment executive Simon Cowell. The programme features performers of varied disciplines including singing, dancing, magic, acrobatics, comedy, and unusual acts, who compete for a cash prize and the title of India's Got Talent winner.
| Original title | India's Got Talent |
|---|---|
| Genre | Reality television, talent competition |
| Based on | Got Talent franchise |
| Original network | Colors TV |
| Country of origin | India |
| Original language | Hindi |
| First aired | 2009 |
| Production | Colosceum Media (early seasons), later other production partners |
| Format | Auditions, theatre rounds, semi-finals, grand finale with public voting |
India's Got Talent follows the standard Got Talent format. Acts of any age, group size, and discipline appear before a panel of judges in audition rounds. Each judge can press a buzzer to indicate disapproval; if all judges press the buzzer simultaneously, the act is stopped. Acts that receive a majority of judges' approval progress to subsequent rounds, culminating in a grand finale where the winner is decided through audience voting via SMS and digital platforms.
The show is notable for showcasing performers from small towns and rural India alongside metropolitan acts, providing a national platform to indigenous performance traditions, street artists, and folk troupes that may otherwise lack mainstream exposure.
The Got Talent franchise originated with Britain's Got Talent in 2007 and has since been adapted in dozens of countries. The Indian version was launched in 2009 on Colors TV, then a recently established Hindi general entertainment channel owned by Viacom18. It became one of the early flagship reality programmes for the channel and helped consolidate Colors TV's position in the Indian general entertainment space alongside competitors such as Star Plus, Sony Entertainment Television, and Zee TV.
Open auditions are typically held across multiple Indian cities. Selected acts perform before the judging panel and a live studio audience. Judges deliver verbal feedback and decide whether the act advances.
Shortlisted acts are grouped into batches and perform again, with judges narrowing the field to a fixed number of finalists.
The grand finale showcases the top finalists, with the eventual winner decided by a combination of judges' scores and viewer votes. The winning act receives a cash prize, which has varied across seasons.
The judging panel and hosts have changed across seasons. Judges over the show's run have included prominent figures from Indian cinema, dance, and music, such as Kirron Kher, Karan Johar, Malaika Arora, Sonali Bendre, Sajid Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Manoj Muntashir, Badshah, and Kirti Kulhari, among others. Hosts in various seasons have included Nikhil Chinapa, Ayushmann Khurrana, Manish Paul, Bharti Singh, Arjun Bijlani, and others associated with Indian television.
India's Got Talent is among the longest-running non-fiction franchises on Indian television. It has contributed to the popularity of variety-format reality programming in India and has launched the careers of several performers and groups. Acts featured on the show have subsequently performed in feature films, stage shows, international tours, and other reality programmes. The show has also provided visibility to traditional and folk performance forms, including kalaripayattu-influenced acrobatics, regional dance styles, and indigenous music ensembles.
The show is produced for Colors TV, with production partners changing across seasons. It is broadcast in Hindi, with episodes also available on the Voot and JioCinema digital platforms following the merger of Viacom18's streaming services. Episodes typically air on weekend prime time.
India's Got Talent has generally received favourable viewership ratings during its broadcast windows and has been a recurring component of Colors TV's weekend programming line-up. Critics have praised the diversity of acts and the production scale, while occasional criticism has been directed at the increasing emphasis on emotional backstories and judge personalities common to the wider reality genre in India.