29 October 2015 (2015-10-29) – 8 October 2018 (2018-10-08)
On Air With AIB was an Indian web televisionsatire show created by All India Bakchod on Star India's digital platform Hotstar. It aired between 2015 and 2018.[1] It was modeled after The Daily Show, SNL, and Last Week Tonight. The first season was replayed on Star Plus and World on the weekends. Seasons two and three were Hotstar digital exclusives, and shorter segments were uploaded on the AIB YouTube channel. The show was produced by Only Much Louder, a Mumbai-based entertainment company and AIB's former management, and was cancelled in its third season due to two separate instances of lack of redressal of sexual misconduct complaints by employees against collaborators, by the group's co-founders Tanmay Bhat and Gursimranjeet Singh Khamba. The opening theme "Tragedy Mein Comedy" (finding comedy in tragedy), is written, and performed, by Mumbai-based MC and producer Naezy. The track is produced by the production duo StunnahSezBeatz.[2][3] All studio episodes were shot in Mumbai.
Production
Pre Show
Prior to the show, AIB had established themselves as sketch comedy artists. Between 2012 and 2015, they uploaded numerous sketches—satirical, parody, spoof—and received popularity for It's Your Fault, a satirical take on Indian patriarchy. After facing public backlash for using insult comedy in their first large-scale production—a comedy central roast copy called AIB Knockout—the group did not upload anything on YouTube between 16 December 2014, and 11 April 2015.[4] In order to regain goodwill, the first video they uploaded was a call to action sketch that urged viewers to fight for net neutrality in India. Around this time the group started hiring to begin per-production, and scripting, the show.
Announcement and release
On 14 September 2015, they uploaded the first On Air With AIB advertisement.[5] In it fictional characters are seen congratulating the group on their copied roast, and fantasizing about a second one. It includes a skit of AIB spoofing their own roast. In a press release, the group said the show would "cover themes of national and local interest," and Bhat confirmed that they had been working on the show for the past "3-4 months."[6] The show was taped in studio, in Mumbai. First at Filmalaya Private Limited, Andheri,[7] and later at the space above The Habitat, Khar.[8] S01E01 premiered on 29 October 2015. The first season ran for 20 episodes, second season ran 10 episodes, and the third season was cancelled after 3 episodes.
Cancellation
Two separate cases of sexual misconduct allegations were leveled against AIB co-founders Tanmay Bhat, and Gursimranjeet Singh Khamba in the first week of October, 2018.[9] Bhat was accused of being complicit in a sexual harassment case after he ignored complaints against a former employee, Utsav Chakraborty, and continued a professional relationship between him and AIB. Bhat later apologized on Twitter. In the second incident an unnamed woman accused Khamba of violating her consent, and emotional abuse. Khamba has denied these allegations. Hotstar cancelled the show on 8 October 2018.[10]
Season
One
Was divided into 10 episode sets of Hindi and English each. Bhat and Khamba anchored the Hindi episodes, while Joshi and Shakya anchored it in English. Critics called it "not particularly funny"[11] and an "attempt at a news satire show along the lines of The Daily Show and its popular spin-off Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."[12] Reviews also noted its close similarity to Oliver's show.[11]
They changed the format by creating shorter segments, inviting guests, introducing a podcast style segment, and making it multilingual. It was 10 episodes long, and uploaded as shorter segments online. The premier was called "underwhelming at best."[14] Many frequent collaborators such as comedians Abish Matthew, Kanan Gill, Biswa Kalyan Rath, Rahul Subramaniam, Kenny Sebastian, Varun Thakur, Neville Shah, Kaneez Surka, Sumukhi Suresh, Zakir Khan, Anuvab Pal, Azeem Banatwala, Malika Dua and Varun Grover were the guest interviews.
They largely stuck with the same format as season two. Guests on this season included BuzzFeed India employee Srishti Dixit, former (Buzzfeed India) employee Rega Jha, comedian Rahul Subramaniam, and comedian Urooj Ashfaq. Critics said the third season "gets lazy with stale jokes"[16] and it was subsequently cancelled by Hotstar[10] after three episodes because of two separate sexual misconduct allegations against Bhat's complicity within AIB, and Khamba.[9]
