Fame Gurukul was an Indian reality TV show aired on Sony Entertainment Television. The show was produced by Miditech India Pvt Ltd, the same production company that produced the popular show Indian Idol. The first episode of Fame Gurukul was telecasted on 27th June, 2005.
The concept of the show was to find out the best singer – performer pair of India. It is the Indian version of the Spanish show Operación Triunfo, which was also adopted in France as Star Academy format of Endemol and in England as Fame Academy. There were 16 participants who lived in a music and performance academy, called Gurukul. One participant is eliminated every week through voting system. The final 2 participants remaining in the show; win the show and several prizes. The prizes include a Rs. 1 crore music recording contract with Sony and a Maruti Alto car to each contestant.
Fame Gurukul was hosted by
Mandira Bedi
and
Manav Gohil
. The judges of the show were
Javed Akhtar
, K K and
Shankar Mahadevan
. The finale of the show was telecasted on 20th October, 2005. The three finalists were
Qazi Touqeer
, Rex D'Souza and
Ruprekha Banerjee
. Qazi Touqeer won the show with Ruprekha Banerjee. Fame Gurukul gave us one of the best playback singers of present times,
Arijit Singh
.
Fame Gurukul won the Indian Telly Award for Best Reality Show in 2006 and ITA Award for Best Reality Show in 2005. After the success of Fame Gurukul, Sony TV launched a similar show called Celebrity Fame Gurukul, where the contestants are celebrities.