| ChuChu TV | |
| Origin: | Chennai, India |
| Years Active: | 2013–present |
| Channel Name: | thechuchutv |
| Channel Display Name: | ChuChu TV Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs |
| Genre: | Edutainment |
| Subscribers: | 91.1 million |
| Views: | 50.8 billion |
| Silver Button: | yes |
| Silver Year: | 2014 |
| Gold Button: | yes |
| Gold Year: | 2015 |
| Diamond Button: | yes |
| Diamond Year: | 2017 |
| Ruby Button: | yes |
| Ruby Year: | 2021 |
| Stats Update: | 20 May 2024 |
ChuChu TV is a network of Indian YouTube channels that creates edutainment content for children from ages 1 to 6. The network offers animated 2D and 3D videos featuring traditional nursery rhymes, in English, Hindi, Tamil and other languages, as well as original children's songs. As of April 2024, ChuChu TV is the 13th most-subscribed channel on the platform YouTube.
ChuChu TV's founder, CEO, and director—Vinoth Chandar—posted the channel's first video on YouTube, basing the main character ChuChu on his then-two-year-old daughter.[1] The video, based on "Chubby Cheeks", received over three hundred thousand views in two weeks.[2] After that success, Chandar decided to invest in his channel and convinced his partners Krishnan, Ajith Togo, Subbiramanian, and Suresh to join his team.[3]
The videos feature a bright art style, with cute characters dancing, singing, and playing out what the lyrics describe, under music with Bollywood[4] song structure, including multiple riffs between verses.
In 2016, ChuChu TV announced a licensing and merchandising partnership with DreamTheatre.[5] In 2018, ChuChu TV inked a partnership with Australian media company Moose Toys to make a line of figurines, dolls and plushes, planning to reveal them in the fall of 2019, with apparel, publishing and back-to-school ranges also planned for 2019.[6]
The channel gained acceptance from parents and a large audience, especially in the United States.[7] [8] However, a backlash developed, with an average of 30%+ dislikes. Vinoth Chandar has referred specifically to the "Johny Johny Yes Papa" compilation comments as "very hateful" and claims trolls "just don't understand that [their] content is for toddlers".[9] Parents reacted to "The Numbers Song" with the lyric, "Shoot the numbers with the gun", leading Chuchu TV to change the lyric to " Jump on numbers just for fun". Asian parents did not react to the lyric, due to different views on guns in Asia.[10]