Misplaced Pages

On Air With AIB
Genre	Satire
Created by	All India Bakchod
Written by	AIB Devaiah Bopanna Siddharth Dudeja Girish Narayandass Madhavendra Singh Karunesh Talwar Abhishek Upamanyu Shreyas Manohar Vignesh Raja Rohan Desai Dhruv Deshpande Adhiraj Singh
Directed by	Ashwin Shetty Arun Das Nishant Nayak Aniket Rao
Presented by	Tanmay Bhat Rohan Joshi Gursimranjeet Singh Khamba Ashish Shakya
Theme music composer	StunnahSezBeatz
Opening theme	Tragedy Main Comedy by Naezy
Country of origin	India
Original languages	Hindi English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	23
Production
Executive producers	Kanika Unnikrishnan Joel Pereira
Producers	Achal Gupt Vikram Singh Vriti Patil AIB
Production location	Mumbai
Cinematography	Apurva Sinnarkar Sudhir Koushik
Animators	Plexus Nishant Jethva Mihir Lele
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22–30 minutes
Production company	All India Bakchod
Original release
Network	Hotstar
Release	29 October 2015 (2015-10-29) – 8 October 2018 (2018-10-08)

On Air With AIB is an Indian satire television program created by All India Bakchod on Star India's digital platform Hotstar. It aired between 2015 and 2018. It was modeled after The Daily Show, SNL, and Last Week Tonight. The first season was replayed on StarPlus and Star 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. 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. 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. 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." The show was taped in studio, in Mumbai. First at Filmalaya Private Limited, Andheri, and later at the space above The Habitat, Khar. 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. 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.

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" 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." Reviews also noted its close similarity to Oliver's show.

Two

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." 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.

Three

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" and it was subsequently cancelled by Hotstar after three episodes because of two separate sexual misconduct allegations against Bhat's complicity within AIB, and Khamba.

See also

• The Week That Wasn't
• Fake or Not

References

1. "Watch On Air With AIB Full Episodes Online for Free on hotstar.com". Hotstar. Retrieved 14 February 2019.
2. Tragedy Mein Comedy - Single by Naezy, 18 July 2016, retrieved 2 February 2019
3. On Air with AIB, retrieved 15 February 2019
4. All India Bakchod (11 April 2015), AIB : Save The Internet, retrieved 15 February 2019
5. All India Bakchod (14 September 2015), AIB's New Show - Coming Soon, retrieved 15 February 2019
6. "AIB's Upcoming News Comedy Show 'On Air' Promises To Pull No Punches". HuffPost India. 15 September 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
7. "On Air With AIB: Live Taping". insider.in. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
8. "On Air With AIB Taping". insider.in. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
9. ^ "Hotstar cancels 'On Air With AIB' Season 3 citing harassment allegations". MediaNama. 9 October 2018. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
10. ^ Hotstar (8 October 2018). "pic.twitter.com/NNVU3tLcz7". @hotstartweets. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
11. ^ Sen, Rajyasree (2 November 2015). "Review | On Air with AIB". LiveMint. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
12. Gurbaxani, Amit (16 November 2015). "'On Air With AIB' Shows A Subtler Side Of The Crowd-Pleasing Comedy Troupe". The Daily Pao. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
13. "Watch On Air With AIB Season 1 Full Episodes in HD on Hotstar". Hotstar. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
14. Lee, Kevin Kenneth (23 March 2017). "On Air with AIB Review: Less On Air, More AIB". Film Companion. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
15. "Watch On Air With AIB Season 2 Full Episodes in HD on Hotstar". Hotstar. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
16. "'On Air With AIB 3' Gets Lazy With Stale Jokes, Memes & PJs". The Quint. 6 October 2018. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
17. "Watch On Air With AIB Season 3 Full Episodes in HD on Hotstar". Hotstar. Retrieved 13 March 2019.

• Indian comedy television series
• Political satirical television series
• 2015 Indian television series debuts
• 2018 Indian television series endings
• Indian political television series
• StarPlus original programming
• Hindi-language Disney+ Hotstar original programming
• News parodies
• Current affairs shows
• Television news in India
• 2010s television news shows
• Entertainment news shows