As far as i know, the name 'Urdu' came from the Turkish word 'Ordu' meaning a camp. it was so because in the Mughal camp, ppl from every where were serving the kings, and the language grew out of the intermixing of the local Khari Boli and foreign tongues like Arabic, Farsi and Turkish.
and yes, Urdu/Hindi is comparatively easier, but most of its popularity is because of its use in Bollywood and all the soaps.
Your information mostlikely coicides to mine , which i too have no source to refere too.
I donot think so , Urdu/Hindi have gotton its popularity due to Bollywood.
Go through the History of Amitab bachan or Amresh Pury etc it is very near Past.
But It could be said that Bollywood have taken advantage of the Popularity of Urdu/Hindi.
I think the main reason of Popoularity of URDU is due to its composition of being mixture of Local/Popular Foriegn languages.