Mixed signals: MTV Desi, South Asian American audiences and the discourse of ethnic television

Abstract

This article's key argument is that MTV Desi an ethnically defined satellite channel distributed through the premium subscription model in 2005 and subsequently cancelled for its financial unviability in 2007 offers us a key example of the disjuncture between mainstream, commercial US television's investment in and engagement with its newly attractive South Asian American or desi markets and the media cultures, tastes and expectations of the community that is spoken for. This disjuncture, I further argue, is significant since it illuminates the tensions and struggles over ‘ethnic’ markets (so defined) and cultural representations that emerge when a commercially oriented mainstream television industry tries to incorporate multiculturalism as a financially necessary strategy in an age of increasing media competition and dwindling audiences but seems unwilling to go the distance in terms of long-term investment and cultivation of its newly discovered ethnic niches.

Keywords:

• MTV Desi
• South Asian American audiences
• ethnic markets
• multiculturalism
• US television

Notes

1. Sontag, ‘I want my Hyphenated-Identity MTV’.

2. While for my present purpose, I use the term desis to refer in a generalized way to South Asian Americans; I am neither advocating an uncritical deployment of the term nor suggesting any ethnic essence to immigrants of South Asian heritage.

3. Daswani, ‘MTV World's Nusrat Durrani’.

4. PR Newswire, ‘MTV World Set to Launch in US on Direct TV’.

5. Picture, ‘MTV World’.

6. Tsering, ‘South Asians Rally to Get MTV World Back on the Air’.

7. MTV Iggy's Homepage URL: http://www.mtviggy.com/. MTV Desi.com, while outside the scope of this article, is an interesting text to study especially for its strategic articulation of difference in a global participatory culture.

8. See Hamamoto, Monitored Peril; Husband, ‘Media and the Public Sphere in Multi-Ethnic Societies’; and Cottle, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’.

9. Lowe, Immigrant Acts, 5.

10. Tsering, ‘MTV Desi Channel to Launch’.

11. Project Race. http://www.projectrace.com/statefederalcensus/census/ (accessed May 15, 2010.

12. http://www.sepiamutiny.com (accessed January 19, 2010).

13. For Asian Variety Show, go to http://www.avstv.com/aboutus.php (accessed July 7, 2010); For Namaste America, go to http://www.namastetv.com/aboutus.html (accessed September 1, 2010).

14. See http://www.indiandishnetwork.com/ for Dish network's South Asian lineup and http://www.allied-media.com/southasian/index.html for historical information on specific channels like Zee, Sony and B4U (accessed May 2, 2010).

15. Siliconeer, ‘Here Comes Star! A Gift From DirecTV’.

16. Ouellette, ‘South Asians’ Growing American Clout’.

17. Potts, ‘American Desi Network Launched in So. Cal’.

18. Homepage: http://www.pandesi.com/AboutUs.aspx (accessed August 31, 2012).

19. Mitra Kalita, ‘TV Networks try to Attract Asians and All their Niches’.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. Garmer, UnMassing America: Ethnic Media and the New Advertising Marketplace.

23. Jang, ‘How MTV and Other Corporations Are Challenging Asian America’.

24. Ruiz, ‘Desi Media's Next Generation’.

25. Reeves and Bennett, ‘We the People’.

26. Ouellette, ‘South Asians’ Growing American Clout’.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. I am thinking here of the scholarship of Vijay Prashad, Vinay Lal, Sunaina Maira and Jigna Desai among several others, who have addressed the hegemonic status of ‘Indian’ in South Asian American contexts (see References for detailed citations).

30. Ouellette, ‘South Asians’ Growing American Clout’.

31. Kiviat, ‘Chasing Desi Dollars’.

32. Ibid.

33. Mueller, Communicating with the Multicultural Consumer, 20.

34. Yang, ‘Asian Pop Channeling Asian America’.

35. Stam and Shohat, ‘Contested Histories’.

36. Tsering, ‘MTV Desi Channel to Launch’.

37. Sontag, ‘I want my Hyphenated-Identity MTV’.

38. MTV ‘What is Desi’.

39. PR Newswire,‘MTV World Set to Launch in US on Direct TV’.

40. Punathambekar, ‘What Brown Cannot Do For You’.

41. Balaji, ‘Bollyville, USA’, 32.

42. Chang, ‘Here's your MTV’.

43. Picture, ‘MTV World’.

44. Ibid.

45. Ouellette, ‘South Asians’ Growing American Clout’.

46. Ibid.

47. http://www.petitiononline.com/MTVWORLD/petition.html (accessed June 25, 2010).

48. Tsering, ‘South Asians Rally to Get MTV World Back on the Air’.

49. Ibid.

50. http://www.petitiononline.com/MTVWORLD/petition.html (accessed June 25, 2010).

51. Hamamoto, Monitored Peril, 207.

52. Husband, ‘Media and the Public Sphere in Multi-Ethnic Societies’, 210.

53. Ibid., 209.

54. Gray, ‘Black Representations in the Post Network, Post Civil Rights World of Global Media’, 127.

55. Gray, Watching Race, 66.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid., 67

59. Mitra Kalita, ‘TV Networks try to Attract Asians and All their Niches’.

60. Tsering, ‘Comast to Shut Down Asian-Themed AZN Network’.

61. Tsering, ‘South Asians Rally to Get MTV World Back on the Air’.

62. http://www.petitiononline.com/ccbanzai/petition.html (accessed August 11, 2010).

63. http://www.sajaforum.org/2007/03/music_mtv.html (accessed August 11, 2010)

64. Ibid.

65. Gray, ‘Black Representations in the Post Network, Post Civil Rights World of Global Media’, 128.