December 16, 2025
ISLAMABAD – In a production studio in Karachi, on the largest floor in the city, a set stands that defies the country’s current economic mood. It is grand, illuminated by special lights imported from Dubai, and designed to project a glitzy image that mesmerises Pakistani audiences.
“The set you see now is actually 20 per cent smaller than planned,” admits Nadeem J, the show’s director, co-producer and visual architect. “Otherwise, it was an even bigger set and even grander. So big that it started bending.”
This mix of grand ambition and structural improvisation — the quintessential Pakistani jugaarr (making things work with limited resources) — has a lot to do with the resurrection of Pakistan Idol.
While platforms such as Coke Studio and other branded franchises, along with streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube, have kept the country’s music scene vibrant, they often rely on established names, niche discoveries, or artists with the means to produce their own music. What has been missing is the pipeline from the grassroots — specifically talent outside the golden triangle of Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad (KLI).
After a hiatus of over a decade, Pakistan Idol has returned to a media landscape that is radically different from the one it left. The last time Pakistan Idol flickered on screens here, social media was in its infancy, visuals were shot on low-resolution DV cams, and the definition of a ‘star’ was dictated by television executives. Today, the show is being steered by four industry veterans who believe that this isn’t just a TV programme; it is a movement to rebuild a grassroots infrastructure.
I sat down with the core team behind this massive undertaking: Badar Ikram, the producer; Nadeem J; Umar Amanullah, head of creative and communications; and Shuja Haider, the music producer. Between them, they share nearly a century of experience in Pakistan’s entertainment sector. Their mission is not just to find a singer, but to bridge a generational gap that threatens to erase a huge chunk of Pakistan’s musical history.
The ‘why now’ factor
Why bring back a behemoth like Pakistan Idol now? The franchise had a turbulent history in Pakistan, launching once in 2013-14 before disappearing, leaving its winner in obscurity and the industry sceptical.
“There was a gap,” says Ikram, a media strategist with 25 years of experience, who initiated the revival. He was part of the team of the previous iteration and has been trying on and off to get it off the ground since, but felt the market remained untapped. “Pakistan Idol happened once, but for some reason… Fremantle [the format owners] wasn’t doing it in Pakistan. Multiple people tried in between, but it didn’t happen.”
The scepticism was high. Ikram recalls the barrage of questions he faced during the six months it took to convince the stakeholders, who had numerous reservations and questions, such as, “Pakistan doesn’t have enough music. Without Indian music, how will it happen? Is it financially viable?” and “Can live music really be played here?”
These questions were not unfounded. The Pakistani music industry needs fresh blood, and not just from the major cities. The grassroots infrastructure that once groomed talent — Radio Pakistan and the arts councils — has crumbled. The concert culture, the primary source of monetisation for artists, vanished for 10 to 12 years due to security instability. Brands like Coke Studio have played a considerable role in promoting artists who were already up-and-coming, but what’s been missing is what we have been witnessing unfold on Pakistan Idol.
“I always believed that it would happen and it would be successful,” Ikram says. To prove it, he assembled a team that could navigate both the corporate boardroom and the chaotic reality of a live production floor.
The miracle machine
The result is what Nadeem J calls a “miracle machine.” Unlike the drama serials that dominate local television, a music reality show is a logistical beast. In a standard season, most musical programmes in Pakistan produce perhaps 20 songs. Pakistan Idol is attempting over 250 songs in a single season.
“We were recording eight songs in a day,” Nadeem reveals, detailing a schedule that sounds gruelling even by industry standards. “We do it because we are Pakistanis. We have a habit of jugaarr. We find a way.”
This improvisation, however, stops at the audio quality. The team made a rigid commitment to authenticity in an era of auto-tuned perfection. “Our commitment was: no lip-syncing,” Ikram asserts.
Nadeem J reinforces this: “All musicians play live, all singers sing live. In between, I see comments on YouTube saying ‘This is lip-syncing’… no! It’s all written and performed live.”
To achieve this, the team utilises a ‘jamming room’ recording method, overseen by the multi-talented and extremely hard-working Haider — tracks are prepped, sent to contestants via WhatsApp to memorise, rehearsed the next day, and then performed live. It is a high-wire act of production, executed at a pace that could only be achieved through sheer passion.
The copyright nightmare and the archive
One challenge the production team has been facing is copyright infringement. With Indian songs largely off the table due to geopolitical tensions and rights issues, the show has been forced to look inwards, digging into the archives of Pakistani pop, rock and film music. This necessity has revealed a startling generational disconnect.
“Regarding the time Pakistani music left off, around 2006, 2007 or 2008,” says Amanullah. “That was a great time for music up to 2006, and it is surprising to me that quite a few kids today haven’t heard that music. They have mostly been listening to recent music.”
For Gen-Z contestants, ‘new stuff’ is simply what is trending on TikTok today. They are oblivious to the heritage of the early 2000s, let alone the classics of the 70s and 80s. The show, therefore, has inadvertently become an archival project, reintroducing the nation’s youth to its own sonic history.
But securing the rights to this history has been a battle. The tragedy, according to Amanullah, is that everyone loses. The show loses content, but the songwriters and original rights holders lose relevance. “It’s a loss for both,” he says. However, the team is turning this disadvantage into an advantage. By allowing contestants to sing older, often forgotten Pakistani tracks, they are reviving dead catalogues.
“My EMI [record label] contacts told me their repertoire usage has increased because we played a song, and the listener went back to listen to the original,” Ikram notes. “It’s about turning an apparent disadvantage into an advantage,” adds Amanullah.
Haider points out a structural difference between the Indian and Pakistani industries that complicates this. “Our region is so small compared to our neighbours, yet there is no comparison in terms of talent and diversity of music. They [India] have a lot of material. Their quantity of music is huge. We have fewer quantities, but we have more genres.”
This scarcity of volume but depth of genre makes selection difficult, yet crucial. “Every past era acts like a seed for the next era,” Haider muses. “The 60s inspired the 70s… We didn’t have that here. Everything shut down very quickly.”
Finding talent
Most of the contestants walking onto Nadeem J’s grand stage are not polished performers. They are, in the local vernacular, “zero-meter”— brand new.
“When we started the Theatre Round… we shortlisted 75-80 people,” points out Ikram. “By and large, 80pc of them were those who had never held a mic.” This lack of experience is a direct symptom of the collapsed infrastructure. There are no school choirs, no community centres, and very few ustaads [teachers] accessible to the masses.
Haider uses a poignant analogy to describe the situation: “I often say that, for a beginner, music is like a pond. But for a learner, it is a vast sea.”
He laments that, unlike his generation, which learned by hanging around studios and observing the masters, today’s youth lack that access. “Nowadays, our talent doesn’t get the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them,” Haider says. “I feel I cannot judge these kids on how good or bad they are right now. I feel this is a beginning for them.”
This rawness creates moments of magic and terror on set. Haider describes the moment the red light goes on: “We have fixed big names, guided them in studios. But when these kids pick up the mic… see, if you sing normally, you sing fine. But the moment I press ‘Record’… you’re gone. The recording button is very tricky.”
Speaking of the contestants… while they’re all really good, some of the stories are really moving. Take Rawish Rabab, a schoolteacher from Layyah in southern Punjab: a distinct, melodious voice that has become a point of pride for her entire district.
Her story reads almost like a classic Idol script — difficult circumstances at home, nerves at her first audition, and then a sudden surge of confidence once she realised the judges were actually listening. She calls winning a shield in the early round a turning point; her performance in the Theatre phase drew some of her loudest applause yet.
When she went back to Layyah, the welcome felt like a local festival: students, teachers and neighbours lining up to greet her. It is not just a personal victory; it’s the sense that a schoolteacher from a small town can stand under studio lights and be treated as national news.
If Rawish embodies hometown pride, Maham Tahir from Khanpur, in Rahim Yar Khan, stands for something more fragile: survival. An MPhil student and, after her father’s early death, effectively a co-breadwinner for her family, Maham pays bills and tuition with the same voice she now uses on the Idol stage.
She built her craft not in fancy studios but through naat and spiritual poetry recitals, gravitating towards Sufi singing and treating Abida Parveen as a kind of spiritual mentor, even without formal training. Idol, for her, isn’t just a platform; it is a rare space where devotion, economic necessity and artistic ambition line up under one spotlight.
The show is also quietly full of students reshaping their academic lives around music. Rohail Asghar, originally from Jhang and now based in Lahore, moved with his parents so he could study on a music-category seat in Punjab University’s Mass Communication department. He now heads the university’s music society, earns part of the family’s income through gigs, and recently found himself receiving an honorary shield from the vice chancellor after his Idol performances.
Rohail has no formal classical training, but talks about learning from listening obsessively to Ghulam Ali and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. One of the most moving details in his backstory never made it on to the main show: his younger sister Jia had planned to audition too, but couldn’t — because she was donating part of her liver to their mother.
Every contestant has an inspiring backstory, especially because in our country, talent is very rarely nurtured and given the importance it deserves.
The death of the ‘mean judge’
To judge this raw talent, the team curated a panel comprising Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Fawad Khan, Bilal Maqsood and Zeb Bangash. An undoubtedly respectable panel, notable for its lack of a ‘Simon Cowell’ figure — the archetype of the rude, abrasive judge that defined the early 2000s reality TV boom.
“People asked me, ‘Who is the Simon Cowell of this panel?’,” Ikram recalls. “My answer was: Simon Cowell is not even on American Idol anymore.”
The team recognised a global shift in audience sensibilities. “That kind of judgment — dressing someone down, insulting them if they didn’t sing properly — is not taken very well by audiences globally anymore,” Ikram explains.
In the age of social media, the public acts as the critic. “The awaam [public] is answering these questions themselves on social media,” Amanullah quips, noting that the audience defends the show’s choices without the production needing to issue press releases.
The road ahead: Themes and elimination
As the show moves past its initial phases, the stakes are rising. The season is structured over 40 episodes, spanning 20 weeks. Having completed the Auditions and Theatre Rounds, the show is now in the Gala Phase, where the remaining 16 contestants will face themed challenges.
“Now, themes will come in. Genres will come in. Special episodes… Wedding songs, Mother’s specials etc,” Nadeem J explains.
Crucially, the power is about to shift from the judges to the public. “From next week, the public voting starts,” Nadeem says. The format is ruthless: at the end of each episode, a “Bottom 3” will be announced based on judges’ scores, and the contestant with the lowest public votes will be sent home.
This leads to the Finale — the last two episodes — in which the team plans to enhance the visuals further.
Defining success
The ultimate question remains: what does success look like in a country where the previous Idol winner vanished, and in a world where “viral fame” is often mistaken for a career?
For the core team, success is not about ratings, but about sustainability.
“In India, it’s the 16th season this year… They have a regular cycle,” Nadeem points out, contrasting it with Pakistan’s stop-start history, where promises made weren’t kept.
As far as ratings are concerned, Amanullah explains, “When we talk about ‘ratings’, we’re no longer looking only at television in isolation. Our primary measure of success is digital reach and repeat-viewing, because that’s where the global Gen-Z audience lives — whether they’re consuming news, entertainment, or music.”
He adds that “Gen-Z doesn’t wait for scheduled broadcasts; they discover talent through shareable clips, bingeable backstage content, and on-demand viewing. That’s why for us, our performance indicators are centred on streaming minutes on the Begin App, for instance.”
He goes on to say that “Traditional TRPs [television rating points] still matter for television, but the long-term value of Pakistan Idol lies in digital fandom — the kind that grows artists into global acts, not just weekly ratings winners. And the numbers are in the millions on our digital content, which is quite encouraging.”
This time, as a private production driven by passion, the show’s goal is to create a figure that lasts. However, Ikram looks beyond the winner. He cites the ‘Jennifer Hudson effect.’ “Success is… look at Jennifer Hudson. She was in the Top 7 on American Idol, then became an EGOT [Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony] winner. It’s about the platform. It’s not about when you got kicked out.”
There are already signs that the platform is working. Ikram mentions contestants who didn’t even make the Top 16 but are seeing their careers take off.
“Ahmed Hassan… he isn’t in the Top 16. But his song is on Spotify, and it’s become popular,” he notes.
Ikram then shares a story about a call from the Multan Arts Council, which is holding a ceremony to honour the 11 or 12 kids from the city who merely went to the auditions. “They are being celebrated in their community,” he says.
To the team, this is the seed of a new ecosystem. “We need infrastructure where record labels and corporate infrastructure exist. When concerts start, monetisation starts… the industry builds itself,” Ikram argues.
A question of pride
Beyond the economics and the logistics, there is an emotional current running through Pakistan Idol. In a polarised country often starved of good news, music remains a rare unifier.
Ikram reflects on the birth of private media: “I remember when we started Geo… there were no newscasters because there was no demand previously.” He sees Pakistan Idol doing the same for music professionals.
But the real validation comes from the comments section. Ikram beams when mentioning the reaction to a recent medley performed on the show. “People commented, ‘Pakistan Zindabad.’ There is a sense of pride,” he says. He recounts a comment from an overseas Pakistani in Dubai: “I am in Dubai, sitting in my office with foreigners, and I showed them this… look, this is my country.”
Amanullah adds that the show has revived the concept of communal viewing. “I know quite a few families, for example, in Canada, who have weekend watch parties,” he says.
For a team of veterans who have seen the industry rise and fall, this project is personal. It is, as Ikram puts it, “a labour of love.” “We are not saying we are doing a programme,” Ikram concludes. “We say this is a movement.”
And as the lights dim on the Karachi set and the next “zero-meter” contestant steps up to the mic to sing a song from an era they never knew, one can’t help but feel that the movement has finally begun.