Established almost 23 years ago on 8th October, 1995, the Sony TV Channel is now one of the most popular television channels which came into existence. It was popularly known as Sony TV or SET and is a Hindi language based general entertainment channel. The Sony TV Channel is owned by the Sony Pictures Networks India, which is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Sister Channels of Sony TV Channel in India
The Sony TV Channel was a joint venture promoted by the Sony Pictures Entertainment since 1995. Currently, there are about 18 subsidiary channels of Sony TV which are broadcasted all over the nation and these channels can be divided into several genres and languages catering to the interests of various people.
Channels like Sony Max and Sony Max 2 broadcast only Hindi language movies, while the former has been airing the Twenty20 cricket tournament Indian Premier League (IPL) since its launch in 2008 and continued till 2017, after which Sony Max lost the broadcasting rights to Star Sports.
The popular SAB TV, also known as Sony Sab specialises in comedy shows and soap operas, which are all broadcast in Hindi. Channels like Sony Marathi and Sony Aath broadcasts series, films, cartoons and sports events produced or dubbed in Marathi or Bengali language so as to cater to the regional language speaking people.
With Sachin Tendulkar as the brand ambassador of Sony India"s sports channels, Sony TV offers three subsidiary sports channels like Sony Six, Sony Ten and Sony ESPN. Sony Six has the broadcasting rights to FIFA World Cup and broadcasts original programmes like NBA Slam. Sony ESPN is more recent and was officially launched as Sony Kix as the partnership between Sony Pictures Networks and ESPN became official in 2015. Sony Ten was launched back in 2002 as collaboration between Sony Pictures Network and Ten Sports.
The Sony TV Channel also offers two music channels like Sony MIX and Sony Rox HD, the former was launched in 2011 and has recently in 2018 has launched its own music awards named Audience Music Awards to honour the artists of the Indian music industry. Launched in January, 2017, Sony Rox is an HD pay-TV channel. Both of these channels broadcast Hindi language music videos.
Then there are channels like Sony Pix and Sony Le Plex, which broadcast Hollywood films and critically acclaimed Hollywood movies respectively. At the launch time in 2016, the brand ambassador for Sony Le Plex was Zoya Akhtar. Other than this there is also AXN, which has only recently in 2016, changed its slogan to Live R.E.D to primarily advertise their range of content as well as their shift to action-genre programming. In India, these channels broadcast in English language.
With Kareena Kapoor as the brand ambassador for Sony BBC Earth during its launch in March, 2017, the channel is multi-lingual and broadcasts BBC programmes in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.
Replacing Animax in 2017, Sony Pictures Network brought forth the children"s entertainment channel of Sony Yay which broadcasts original as well as acquired television programmes. The shows are aired in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Malayalam.
In the recent span of 2 to 4 years channels like Sony Wah (2016) and Sony Pal (2014) came into existence. Sony Wah broadcasts shows which are targeted towards audience of small towns and rural areas in the country, and its programming consists on Hindi-language movies and South Indian films dubbed in that language. And Sony Pal is aimed at women with girl- and family-oriented Hindi language programming.
And finally, the channel Sony LIV is a general entertainment channel which provides the facility of video on demand and consists of 18 years of content from the Sony Entertainment Network Channels. Sony LIV also streams most of Sony TV"s Channels as live channels.
Programmes broadcast by Sony TV Channel
Having produced many iconic shows, Sony TV Channel is known to be one of the most popular television channels. With a slogan like Naya Sangeet, which roughly translates to New Celebrations, Sony TV Channel also broadcasts internationally and nationally produces some stellar shows ranging from dramas, to soap operas and even reality shows. Genre wise discussed elaborately below is a list of shows currently broadcasted by the Sony TV Channel.
Drama Series: Sony TV went through a major revamp recently and is producing quality content like drama, fiction or comedy. In Indian television, drama is a genre of narrative fiction or semi-fiction, which is intended to be serious. Out of the list of programmes broadcast by Sony TV Channel, shows like Patiala Babes, Ladies Special Season 2 and Yeh Un Dinon ki Baat Hai, which has been critically acclaimed for its performances and script are good examples. The mythological drama shows like Mere Sai and Vighnahartha Ganesha, tells some untold stories about Sai Baba of Shirdi and the Hindu God, Lord Ganesha respectively also fall under the category of drama. Sony TV also broadcasts the comedy drama show called Main Maike Chali Jaungi Tum Dekhte Rahiyo, which revolves around the protagonists Samar and his wife Jaya but his mother-in-law Satya Devi"s interference in their marriage forms the main crux of the story.
Historical Fiction Series: In Indian television, historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past. An essential element of historical fiction is that it is set in the past and pays attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the period depicted. Sony TV Channel airs the historical period drama called Chandragupta Maurya, which is based on the life of the Mauryan Emperor and the establisher of the Mauryan Dynasty, Chandragupta Maurya.
Crime Shows: Sony TV Channel is known to broadcasting the two most iconic and longest running television shows in TV history, it is the crime show of Crime Patrol and CID. The Crime Patrol is an Indian crime anthology series which was started back in 2003 and is still continuing for a span of four long Seasons. The fourth season titled as Crime Patrol Satark and is hosted by Anoop Soni. Then there is the legendary show called CID, which is an Indian police procedural television show that started back in 1998 and aired its 1500th episode on February, 2018.
Reality Shows: This genre of television programming documents the supposedly unscripted real life situations and often features an otherwise unknown cast of individuals who are typically not professional actors. There is a wide variety of sub-genres under this category, some of which includes the game shows, talk shows; talent hunt shows and hidden camera shows like Big Boss, all come under reality television. Sony TV Channel airs the famous talent hunt show called the Indian Idol, which is basically a music competition series that was first aired on Sony TV in 2004. The 10th season of Indian Idol premiered on 7th July, 2018 with judges like Vishal Dadlani, Neha Kakkar and Anu Malik, who was later replaced with Javed Ali. The grand finale of this season is to be aired on 23rd December, 2018. Other than this, there is also the comedy based reality show of Comedy Circus, the 18th season of which started on September, 2018 with Archana Puran Singh and Sohail Khan as the judges.
Sony TV Channel continues to be a part of the Indian television industry and has been ruling it for a long time with their quality content and interesting shows.