India's version of the X factor has launched with performances ranging from the amazing to the downright atrocious. But as one of many reality singing shows in India, can the format win over one of the world's largest television audiences?
A bad singer is a bad singer, no matter where you are in the world.
As contestants took to the stage for the opening auditions for X Factor India, viewers on Sunday night could watch a startling variety of hopefuls, who lived up to the show's trademark mix of the truly talented and truly appalling.
What marks out the Indian version of the show is the country's rich and diverse musical heritage, which saw performers try their hand at everything from Bollywood to Bhangra.
"We've had everything from 16 Rajasthani folk singers dressed in turbans singing in high-pitched voices to the soft voice of a 70-year-old man who has been brought up with the Bollywood traditions of the 1960s," says Sonu Nigam, one of the judges on the Indian show.
With the same theme tune, stage set, categories and editing style, the "look" of X Factor India is almost identical to that of its British predecessor.
BBC
