The TV industry has indeed mushroomed giving the viewers a wider choice of fare. Perhaps the fact they have been able to hold their audiences is best borne out by the rise in popularity of Plasma and Super-Flat TV sets, as homes try to make the best of their viewing experience.

Soaps, Comedies, Telefilms, Documentaries, Musicals, News & Current Affairs, Lifestyle-shows, you name it, it was represented in the fifth Hero Honda Indian Television Academy (HHITA) Awards 2005 held on Monday, 7th November 2005 at Bhavan's Ground, Andheri, Mumbai. This well-publicised recognition of quality on the small screen serves as a valuable benchmark for the respective category of programming in the TV industry.

As many as 46 channels were in the fray for the coveted HHITA awards this year. 2017 nominations were received from 340 TV shows, thus representing the entire spectrum of Indian television. Little surprise then that the television industry's luminaries and the film industry's noted dignitaries attended the event.

The stars of the television industry set the stage on fire with a wide range of thunderous performances for the live audience. There was a dance number performed by Rohit & Ronit Roy along with Shweta Tiwari on the hit song "Kajra Re" from Bunty aur Babli. This was followed by mujra numbers from films like Mughal-e-Azam, Devdas, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar performed by sizzling actresses Urvashi Dholakia, Nausheen Ali Sardar and Shama Sikander. The on-screen magic of Hussain and Juhi Parmar was showcased as they swayed to romantic duets, after which star pairs including Iqbal Khan-Neha Bamb, Vikas Bhalla-Mona Singh, Ajay Gehi-Mona Vasu performed to a collection of rain dance numbers.

The off-screen couples Manav Gohil-Shweta Kwaatra and Shakti Anand-Sai Deodhar performed to "Shaadi" numbers followed by a special festival act with stars such as Gautam Rode, Karishma Tanna, Vikas Sethi and Tasneem Shaikh. The grand finale had performances by Roopali Ganguly, Jasweet Kaur, Jennifer Winget, Rucha Gujrathi and Eijaz Khan, who swayed to the tunes of evergreen numbers from veterans like Jeetendra, Asha Parekh, Aroona Irani, Moushmi Chatterjee and Reena Roy.

Speaking about the HHITA Awards and the Gala Nite, Shashi Ranjan and Anu Ranjan, Convenor and President respectively of the ITA said, "This was the fifth year of the HHITA awards, and each year the awards have grown bigger and bigger and the nominations received have increased. The nominees were shortlisted by a jury of stalwarts headed by Raveena Tandon."

The jury comprised veterans from various disciplines of the celluloid medium like Shrabani Deodhar (Director), Pallavi Joshi (Actress/Producer), Saurabh Narang (Director), Ravi Ojha (Director), Vinay Apte (Director), Arun Frank (Director), Arvind Kumar (Cinematographer), Jyothi Venkatesh (Critic and Columnist), Bharat Nerkar (Cinematographer), Shubha Khote (Actress), and Uday Shankar Pani (Director). Raveena Tandon, who headed the jury, is a National Award winning Artiste and also Ex-Chairperson of the Children's Film Society of India.

The live audience at the Awards Nite is sure to be back for more in the coming years.