Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Explained

Creative Director:	Zee TV, Gajendra Singh, Ashwini Karandikar, Supavitra Babul (2010), Neeraj Sharma
Presenter:	Sonu Nigam (1995-2000) Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan (2000-01) Shaan (2002-06) Aditya Narayan (2007-09, 2014-2019,2021) Purab Kohli (2010) Manish Paul (2010, 2020) Javed Ali (2012-2013)
Opentheme:	"Sa Re Ga Ma" by Sonu Nigam and Sadhana Sargam (1995-2000) "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa" by Shaan and Sadhana Sargam (2000-06) "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa" by Aditya Narayan and Shriram Iyer (2007-09) "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa" by Javed Ali (2010-2020) "Tu Gaaye Jaa" by Armaan Malik (2020-present)
Country:	India
Runtime:	90 minutes (Including commercials)
Network:	Zee TV Zee5
Last Aired:	present
Num Seasons:	39
Creator:	Zee TV

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa is an Indian Hindi and Nepali (Franchise)-language reality singing television show. It started airing on Zee TV in 1995 as Sa Re Ga Ma.^[1] It is the oldest running game show in India as well as the oldest show on private television in India.^[2] The name of the show is derived from the first five notes in the octave of classical Indian music.

History

The first episode aired on 1 May 1995 and was hosted by Sonu Nigam.^[3] In the year 2000, the show was hosted by the Bangash brothers, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash,^[4] sons of sarod-player Amjad Ali Khan. From 2002, Shaan started hosting the show.^[5] Till 2005, the show used to follow a format wherein experts in the field of music would judge the contestants and score them. The format changed with the advent of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 which introduced the judges as mentors of different teams and scoring was primarily dependent on public voting. After Shaan quit hosting the show, the show was hosted by many others like Purab Kohli, Manish Paul,^[6] Karan Singh Rathore, Archana Jani,^[7] Vipul Roy,^[8] Jay Soni^[9] and even kids Dhairya Sorecha and Afsha Musani.^[10] The most prominent names to host the show in later seasons were Javed Ali^[11] and the current host Aditya Narayan.^[12]

Overview

The show has seen multiple variations over the years :

• Sa Re Ga Ma: Contestants were scored only by the expert judges. There were 8 prelim (quarter-final) rounds, each consisting of 2 male singers and 2 female singers. One male winner and one female winner from each show competed in the semifinal rounds. There were 4 semifinal rounds where the 8 male and 8 female prelim winners participated. Each semifinal round had either 4 male or 4 female quarterfinal winners, so there were a total of 4 semifinals (2 semifinals with 4 males and 2 semifinals with 4 female singers). Each semifinal had only 1 winner. In the finals, the four semifinal winners, 2 male and 2 female competed against each other. Finally one male winner and one female winner became the winners of that season (also called a schedule).
• Sa Re Ga Ma Pa: 2 male singers, 2 female singers. The male and female winner would return the following episode and compete against a new challenger. At the start of this "roll-over" series, they had initially announced that anyone with over 10 wins would get an album; however, that never materialized.
• Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge: Teams were formed, each Gharana (team) had a judge who mentored them. Elimination was decided by public voting.
• Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Ek Main Aur Ek Tu: A duet singing competition which featured some new contestants as well as old contestants from earlier seasons. Weekly elimination decided by public voting.
• Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs: A singing competition for young children, which judges the prodigious kids on the basis of their voice quality, singing talent and versatility in performance.
• Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge USA: The first instalment of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge series in USA.
• Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Mega Challenge: A special season in which eight teams representing eight different states and consisting of total 24 talented contestants from past seasons of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa participated. The show was made to celebrate the 1000th episode of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. Notable Indian singers and musicians were roped in to judge each of the episodes.

Other Indian versions

Due to its success and popularity, it has been remade in languages including Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Bhojpuri and Malayalam.

Seasons

	Season	Year	Winner	Host	Judges
1	Sa Re Ga Ma - Schedule 1	1995	Sanjeevani Bhelande & Mukund PhansalkarRunner Ups - Tyagraj Khadilkar, Hamsika Iyer	Sonu Nigam	Kumar Sanu, Aadesh Shrivastava, Ravi, Raam Laxman, Suresh Wadkar, Anu Malik, Ravindra Jain, Nikhil-VinaySEMI FINALS - Sameer & Dilip Sen, Jatin–Lalit, Nadeem Shravan, HariharanFINAL - Khayyam
2	Sa Re Ga Ma - Schedule 2		Nobina Mirjankar, Shivprasad MallyaRunner ups - Mehboob Ali, Chetna Umarji		Anup Jalota, Peenaz Masani, Mahendra Kapoor, Sapna Mukherjee, Anil Mohile, Anupama Deshpande, Chandan Das, Shailendra SinghSEMI FINALS - Jagjit Kaur, Viju Shah, Javed Akhtar, Usha KhannaFINAL - Kalyanji-Anandji
	Sa Re Ga Ma 29th episode children's special		Prashant Chauhan, Sneha Pant		Ranu Mukherjee
3	Sa Re Ga Ma - Schedule 3	1995-96	Shaoni Mitra, Junaid AkhtarRunner ups - Ameya Date, Sampa Das		Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Ranjit Barot, Vani Jairam, Uttam Singh, Sachin Pilgaonkar, Vinod Rathod, Manhar UdhasSEMI FINALS - Roop Kumar Rathod, Kuldip Singh, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Ustad Ghulam Mustafa KhanFINAL - Pt. Shivkumar Sharma
4	Sa Re Ga Ma - Schedule 4	1996	Mridula Chatterjee, Ravishankar SinghRunner ups - Naresh, Deepali Somaiya		Narendra ChanchalFINAL - O.P. Nayyar
	Sa Re Ga Ma 50th episode celebration		Sanjeevani Bhelande, Anagha, Lata Naidu, Soma Banerjee, Mukund Phalsankar, Jaswinder Singh, Sajjad Ali, Shailesh		Asha Parekh
5	Sa Re Ga Ma		Amrita Khadilkar, Swapnil Bandodkar		Rajendra RizviSEMI FINALS - Pankaj UdhasFINAL - Naushad
6		1996-97	Kajal Chandiramani, Ninad MehtaRunner ups - Vijay Prakash, Smita Joshi		Indivar, Sonik Omi, Arun DateSEMI FINALS - Begum Parveen SultanaFINAL - Jagjit Singh
	Sa Re Ga Ma 75th episode children's special	1996	Shreya Ghoshal, Saagar Kendurkar		Kalyanji-Anandji
7	Sa Re Ga Ma	1997	Rinku Kalia, Sanjeev RambhadranRunner ups - Dharna Pahwa, Devesh Chaturvedi		Ustad Muhammad Hussain-Ahmed Hussain, Shobha Mudgal, Madhurani, Meena KapoorSEMI FINALS - Pandit Rajan Mishra- Sajan Mishra, Dilshad Khan-Begum Parveen SultanaFINAL - Anil Biswas
	Sa Re Ga Ma 100th episode celebration
8	Sa Re Ga Ma		Bela Shende, Parthiv GohilRunner ups - Dhananjay Bhatt, Devyani		Ronu Majumdar, Rajkumari, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Daman Sood-Y.S. MulkySEMI FINAL - Anuradha PaudwalFINAL - Pt. Jasraj
9		1998	Sudeshna Ganguli, Mohammed WakilRunner ups - Abhijeet Ghoshal, Shalini		Tejpal Singh-Surinder Singh, Vishal BhardwajFINAL - Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia
10	Sa Re Ga Ma 150th episode celebration Mega Finals		Bela Shende, Mohammed WakilRunner ups - Mukund Phalsankar, Parthiv Gohil, Sanjeevani Bhelande, Sudeshna Ganguli		Anil Biswas, Naushad, Kalyanji-Anandji, Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia Jagjit Singh, Khayyam, Begum Parveen Sultana, Rajkumari, O.P. Nayyar
	Sa Re Ga Ma Mega Finals (Children's Special)		Sneha Pant (Runner up - Shreya Ghoshal)		Usha Mangeshkar, Meena Tai
11	Sa Re Ga Ma UK	1998-99	Siza Roy, Debashish SenguptaRunner ups - Malini Awasthi, Asif		Pandit Dinesh, Stephen Luscombe, BidduSEMI FINAL - Suresh WadkarFINAL - Jagjit Singh, Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan, Runa Laila, Farida Khanum
12	Sa Re Ga Ma	1998	Archana Udupa, Avadhoot GupteRunner Ups - Gaurav Bangya, Poorva		ChitraSEMI FINAL - Kishan Prasad MaharajFINAL - Pyarelal
	Sa Re Ga Ma Christmas New Year Celebration	1999			Jagjit Singh, Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan, Runa Laila, Farida Khanum
13	Sa Re Ga Ma 200th episode celebration Mega Finals		Shreya Ghoshal, Jaswinder SinghRunner Ups - Archana Udupa, Sampa Kundu, Vijay Prakash, Ameya Date		Zakir Hussain, Girja Devi, Anil Biswas, Vilayat Khan, Ram Narayan, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma
14	Sa Re Ga Ma USA		Sangeeta Nerurkar, Nazakat AliRunner ups - Sharafat Ali, Maithili Panse, Divya Sampat		Nitin Mukesh, Lakshmi Shankar,Alamelu Mani, Ustad Tari KhanFINAL - Zakir Hussain, Manna Dey, Hariharan, Ustad Amjad Ali, Parvez Mehdi
	Sa Re Ga Ma Taj Mahal Millennium celebration	2000
15	Talent of the Millenium		Sumant, Prajakta JoshiRunners Up - Suraj Singh, Ritu Chatterjee, Amrita		Sanjeev Darshan, Sukhwinder Singh, Sajid-Wajid, Jaspinder Narula, Ayaan Ali Bangash, Amaan Ali Bangash, Arati AnkalikarSEMI FINALS - Poornima, Lalit Sen, Sandeep Chowta, Taufiq Qureshi, Sanjeev Abhyankar, Anoushka Shankar FINAL - Pandit Ravi Shankar
16	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2001	2001	Anita Pundit	Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan
17	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2002	2002	Hricha Mukherjee (Hricha Debraj)	Shaan	Khayyam, Begum Parveen Sultana, Sitara Devi, Ranjit Barot, Shobha Gurtu, Anandji, Gulshan Bawra, Ghulam Mustafa
18	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa World Series	2004	Hrishikesh Ranade and Ronkini Gupta
19	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Campus Special	2005	Twinkle Bajpai, Manish Bhatt
20	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005		Debojit Saha		Himesh Reshammiya, Jatin–Lalit, Aadesh Shrivastava, Ismail Darbar
21	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Ek Main Aur Ek Tu	2006	Aishwarya Nigam and Ujjaini Mukherjee	Shaan, Ishita Arun	Hariharan, Lesle Lewis
22	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs		Sanchita Bhattacharya	Shaan	Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Alka Yagnik, Bappi Lahiri
23	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007	2007	Aneek Dhar	Aditya Narayan	Himesh Reshammiya, Ismail Darbar, Bappi Lahiri, Vishal–Shekhar
24	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs International		Anamika Choudhari		Suresh Wadkar, Sonu Nigam
25	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge USA 2008	2008	Darshana Menon	Aishwarya Nigam	Suresh Wadkar, Aadesh Shrivastava
26	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2009	2009	Vaishali Mhade	Aditya Narayan	Himesh Reshammiya, Aadesh Shrivastava, Shankar Mahadevan, Pritam
27	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs 2009		Hemant Brijwasi	Dhairya Sorecha, Afsha Musani	Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Alka Yagnik
28	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Mega Challenge		Team Maharashtra - Vaishali Mhade, Kaushik Deshpande and Rohit Shyam Raut	Karan Singh Rathore and Archana Jani (first episode)Vipul Roy and Manish Paul	Sonu Nigam, Pyarelal and Suresh Wadkar (finale)
29	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Singing Superstar	2010	Kamal Khan	Purab Kohli, Manish Paul	Daler Mehndi, Vishal–Shekhar, Sajid-Wajid
30	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs 2011	2011	Azmat Hussain	Jay Soni	Adnan Sami, Kailash Kher, Javed Ali
31	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2012	2012	Jasraj Jayant Joshi	Javed Ali	Shankar Mahadevan, Rahul Ram, Sajid-Wajid
32	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs 2014	2014	Gagan Gopalkrishna Gaonkar	Aditya Narayan	Alka Yagnik (Mahaguru), Shaan, Monali Thakur
33	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2016	2016	Kushal Paul Runner up -Sachin Kumar Valmiki		Pritam, Sajid-Wajid, Mika
34	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs 2017	2017	Shreyan Bhattacharya and Anjali Gaikwad		Himesh Reshammiya, Javed Ali, Neha Kakkar
35	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2018	2018-2019	Ishita Vishwakarma		Wajid Khan, Shekhar Ravjiani, Sona Mohapatra, Richa Sharma (Replaced Mohapatra)
36	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs 2019	2019	Sugandha Date	Ravi Dubey	Shaan, Richa Sharma, Amaal Malik
37	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs 2020	2020	Aryananda R Babu	Manish Paul	Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu,^[13] Himesh Reshammiya, Javed Ali(Replaced Narayan and Sanu)
38	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2021	2021-2022	Neelanjana Ray	Aditya Narayan	Himesh Reshammiya, Vishal Dadlani, Shankar Mahadevan
39	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs 2022	2022-2023	Jetshen Dohna Lama	Bharti Singh	Shankar Mahadevan, Anu Malik, Neeti Mohan
40	Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2023	2023	Albert Kabo Lepcha	Aditya Narayan	Himesh Reshammiya, Anu Malik, Neeti Mohan

Notes and References

1. Web site: Reality shows take centre stage on TV - Livemint. www.livemint.com. 28 July 2011. 2017-03-17.
2. Web site: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 25th Anniversary Special: The Journey Until Now - Zee5 News. 22 May 2020.
3. News: Sonu Nigam back as host on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa - Times of India. The Times of India. 2017-03-17.
4. Music is inspiration. The Hans India. 30 October 2016. en. 2017-03-17.
5. News: Shaan. Team. Tellychakkar. Tellychakkar.com. 2017-03-17.
6. Web site: Purab Kohli bids adieu to Zee TV's Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Singing Superstar. ZEE TV. 2017-03-17.
7. News: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Mega challenge gets its hosts. Team. Tellychakkar. Tellychakkar.com. 2017-03-17.
8. News: Vipul to do some more hosting. Team. Tellychakkar. Tellychakkar.com. 2017-03-17.
9. News: Jay Soni turns host - Times of India. The Times of India. 2017-03-17.
10. Web site: Dhairya Sonecha & Afsha Musani to Host 'Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs'. ZEE TV. 2017-03-17.
11. Web site: 'Hero Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2012' finds new host in Javed Ali with top 15 contestants Best Media Info, News and Analysis on Indian Advertising, Marketing and Media Industry.. www.bestmediainfo.com. en-US. 2017-03-17.
12. News: Aditya Narayan returns to host 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil' Champs - Times of India. The Times of India. 2017-03-17.
13. Web site: Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan & Kumar Sanu approached to judge Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs' 8th season; Jay Bhanushali to host . Tellychakkar.com . en . 2019-12-29.