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Asian cultural production and invite participation from as diverse an audi-
ence as possible. MTV-Desi, furthermore, was part of a larger MTV World
initiative that involved channels targeting Korean American (MTV-K) and
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Chinese American youth (MTV-Chi). As the very first mainstream media
initiative that targeted diasporic youth culture, these “hyphenated-identity”
MTV channels attracted a great deal of positive attention despite the fact
that they were available only through an international programming package
on DirecTV’s satellite television service. MTV-Desi was part of the “Hindi
Direct” package that included five other Indian television channels and cost
$29.99 per month.
Eighteen months later, MTV Networks pulled the plug on MTV-Desi,
MTV-K, and MTV-Chi, stating that the premium distribution model had
failed to attract audiences and hence advertising revenues. In press releases
and interviews, MTV executives also pointed out that the decision was
shaped by a larger process of corporate restructuring undertaken by the par-
ent company Viacom. On the one hand, the cancellation of the MTV World
initiative did not come as a major surprise to either audiences or media jour-
nalists. As one prominent journalist remarked on the widely read blog of the
South Asian Journalists’ Association, “We published next to nothing on the
channel, because I couldn’t find anyone who watched the satellite channel:
no college students, no twenty-somethings with spare change. And it wasn’t
just me. All the tastemakers I interviewed—DJs, other music types—said
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they didn’t know any MTV Desi subscribers either.” On the other hand,
given the fact that all other attempts to carve out a space for Asian American
programming on television—AZN, American Desi, and ImaginAsian, for
instance—had failed or struggled to remain viable, the dismay among Desis
and other Asian American groups was understandable.
Relying on advertising and marketing discourse that had, over the
2000–10 decade, constructed the “Asian consumer” and the Asian Ameri-
can community as an increasingly important audience demographic, pro-
test letters and petitions suggested that these failures reflected a lack of
commitment on the part of mainstream media corporations to develop and
sustain Asian American programming. Although letters to MTV Networks
urging the company to keep MTV World alive and to make these channels
more widely available did not have any effect, they may have influenced
MTV’s decision to rethink its content production and distribution model.
In December 2008 MTV Networks announced the launch of mtviggy.com,
a website for Desi, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese youth across the world.
While media attention has moved on, focusing instead on mainstream
American television networks’ attempts to create South Asian-themed