Vijay Takkar

About Vijay Takkar

Vijay Takkar — styled on air as Star Vijay Takkar — is a Tamil-language youth-oriented entertainment channel owned by JioStar, the joint venture between Viacom18 and Disney India. Launched on 10 October 2022, it replaced Star Vijay Music in the broadcaster's Tamil portfolio and was positioned as the first dedicated youth channel in Tamil television, carrying the tagline 'Ini Idhudhaan Trend Setter' — roughly, 'now this is the trendsetter'. Its schedule blends youth-focused non-fiction shows, music and movies, targeting the urban young audiences of Tamil Nadu with a brand personality designed to reflect contemporary youth culture.

History

Vijay Takkar's origins lie in Star Vijay Music, a Tamil music channel that Disney Star launched on 4 October 2020. The music channel struggled to hold a pure-music schedule: within months of launch, the broadcaster began airing movies and repeats of old Star Vijay serials on the channel, effectively turning it into a secondary entertainment outlet. By early 2022, Disney Star had decided to reposition the slot entirely.

The first public signal of the change came in April 2022, when a trademark filing for a 'Vijay Takkar' logo appeared with the Government of India's Intellectual Property Office, prompting speculation about the genre of the planned channel. In July 2022, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting approved the renaming of the channel's licence from Vijay Music to Vijay Takkar. Disney Star then announced that Vijay Music would be rebranded as Vijay Takkar, with the change initially slated for 9 October 2022. The channel ultimately launched on Monday, 10 October 2022 — a day later than originally planned — with promos unveiling its youth positioning and show line-up in the preceding days. The outgoing Vijay Music service closed at midnight on 8 October, and Vijay Takkar took its place across distribution platforms.

The Youth-Channel Positioning

The rebrand was explicitly framed as a youth play. Trade coverage at the time noted that the youth-channel strategy had always remained confined to Hindi channels such as MTV, Zing and the former Bindass and Channel V, and had never been extended to any regional market — making Vijay Takkar the first attempt to build a dedicated youth destination in Tamil. The channel's promos positioned it squarely at the youth of Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli and other urban centres of Tamil Nadu, with the slogan 'Ini Idhudhaan Trend Setter' underscoring the intent to set rather than follow cultural trends.

The broadcaster described the channel as having a brand personality reflecting today's youth, with a mix of non-fiction shows, movies and music. The non-fiction slate was designed to resonate with young viewers through daily back-to-back shows rather than a conventional serial-led general entertainment schedule.

Programming and Flagship Shows

Vijay Takkar's launch line-up was built around original youth non-fiction formats. 'College Da' was positioned as a Gen Z-centric show, while 'Cinema Karam Koffee' brought three youngsters together in a café setting for a quirky chat show about trending entertainment events. 'Truck Mela Lucku' took entertainment on wheels, with a fully branded game truck hosting an on-the-road game show. 'Style Style Thaan' followed a crew of a stylist, make-up artist and fashion photographer giving makeovers to ordinary people. 'Starudan Oru Naal' — 'a day with a star' — shadowed celebrities through their homes, friends, family and hobbies, and 'Something Something' was a dating show in which a common person searched for a match each week.

Alongside these originals, the channel's schedule incorporated music programming and movies, drawing in part on the Star Vijay library. Music reality properties from the flagship channel, such as 'Super Singer' and 'Start Music', were part of the broader Vijay ecosystem the new channel could draw upon, and the rebrand was intended to signal a versatile schedule of serials, movies, music and occasional event programming.

Ownership and Corporate Structure

Vijay Takkar was launched by Disney Star India Private Limited, then the Indian television business of The Walt Disney Company. In November 2024, the channel's ownership changed as Viacom18 merged with Disney's Star India business to form JioStar, a joint venture between Viacom18 and Disney India. Vijay Takkar is now a JioStar channel, sitting within the group's Tamil portfolio alongside the flagship general entertainment channel Star Vijay, its high-definition feed Star Vijay HD, and the movie channel Star Vijay Super.

The channel's content streams on JioHotstar, the JioStar streaming platform. The official streaming home for the group's channels is jiohotstar.com.

Reach and Distribution

Because Vijay Takkar replaced Star Vijay Music on existing carriage, it launched with immediate distribution across India's major television platforms. At launch it was available on the direct-to-home services Dish TV, d2h, Tata Play, Airtel Digital TV and Sun Direct, alongside leading cable networks. The channel broadcasts in standard definition, serving the mass-market base that forms the core of Tamil television viewing.

The launch-day availability across all major DTH platforms gave the channel a national footprint from day one, with particular focus on Tamil Nadu and the Tamil-speaking diaspora markets where the Vijay network's channels are strongest.

Viewership and Market Context

Vijay Takkar entered a Tamil market dominated by two large general entertainment networks — Sun TV Network's Sun TV and JioStar's own Star Vijay — with Zee Tamil, Colors Tamil and a clutch of movie and music channels competing for the remainder. As a youth channel, however, it was not competing directly for the family GEC audience; its contest was for the attention of young viewers who increasingly split their time between television and streaming platforms.

Trade commentators were divided at launch on the prospects of the format. Some argued that the niche youth demographic that sustained Hindi youth channels might not translate to the Tamil market, where young viewers were already adopting streaming content rapidly. Others saw the repositioning as a necessary correction: Vijay Music had failed to define a clear programming schedule, and the Takkar identity at least gave the slot a distinct, defensible proposition. Over time, industry observers have noted that the channel's schedule has leaned more heavily on movies and repeat programming, functioning increasingly as a secondary entertainment outlet within the Vijay portfolio rather than a pure youth destination.

Digital and Streaming Presence

Vijay Takkar's shows stream on JioHotstar, where they sit within the platform's Tamil entertainment library alongside Star Vijay's serials, reality shows and films. The platform gives the channel's youth formats a second window with the mobile-first audiences they are designed for, and the network promotes its Tamil portfolio jointly across social media.

The consolidation of the former Disney+ Hotstar and JioCinema services into JioHotstar has expanded the streaming shop window for the group's Tamil channels, aligning with JioStar's strategy of pairing linear regional channels with deep on-demand availability.

Sister Channels and Group Assets

Vijay Takkar's closest siblings are the other Tamil channels of JioStar: Star Vijay, the flagship general entertainment channel launched in the 1990s and one of the two leading Tamil GECs; Star Vijay HD; and Star Vijay Super, the Tamil movie channel that was itself converted from a secondary entertainment outlet into a full-time movie channel in 2019. The group's regional networks also include Star Pravah (Marathi), Asianet (Malayalam) and Star Maa (Telugu), while its Hindi portfolio spans Star Plus, Star Bharat, Colors and a large movie bouquet, alongside the Star Sports network.

Headquarters and Operations

Vijay Takkar operates from JioStar's broadcast base in Mumbai, Maharashtra, where the network's regional channels are programmed and transmitted, with creative and production activity centred on Chennai, Tamil Nadu — the heart of the Tamil television industry. The channel's licence, programming and distribution are managed within JioStar's South entertainment cluster. As the first dedicated youth channel in Tamil television, it remains a distinctive experiment in the group's regional portfolio: an attempt to give Tamil youth a television destination of their own in an era when that audience's attention is increasingly contested by streaming platforms.