SPNI expands its Hindi movie portfolio with launch of Sony Max 1

Indian broadcaster Culver Max Entertainment, commonly known as Sony Pictures Networks India, launched a new Hindi movie channel called Sony Max 1 on Thursday, 1 May 2025. This is SPN’s first new channel launch since Sony Ten 4 in 2021, as the broadcaster has been very conservative in launching new channels in recent years. The new channel is available only in SD (standard definition) for the time being, not HD, and has been added by all pay DTH operators.

Sony Max 1 uses the brand slogan Jo Dekhe Hakka Bakka (whoever watches will be floored), evidently targeting Bollywood movie buffs — though the schedule also consists of a number of South Indian dubbed movies. It has built a social media profile and launched its own website, which is decorated with its unique paper-based graphics design, with red as the main colour and yellow and green as supporting colours — somewhat like its competitor Star Gold Select. The cut-paper pattern also resembles the graphics of Sony Le Plex HD, SPN’s defunct English movie channel, which lasted briefly from 2016 to 2018.

Interestingly, this comes exactly 11 years after the launch of another Hindi movie channel, Sony Max 2, on 1 May 2014 — which also fell on a Thursday. It may seem counterintuitive to launch a channel numbered 1 well over a decade after another channel numbered 2 — especially as the original Sony Max channel, launched in 1999, remains the flagship movie channel of the broadcaster — but Sony Max 1 is here for the long run.

After this launch, there are a total of five Hindi movie channels in Sony’s portfolio: four SD channels — the flagship Sony Max, Sony Max 2, Sony Wah (which is SPN’s designated movie channel for DD Free Dish) and now Sony Max 1 — in addition to a single HD channel, Sony Max HD. This seems like a comparatively small number of channels, but the launch of Sony Max 1 reaffirms SPN’s commitment to the Hindi movie genre, one of the most popular in India. It provides an important avenue for the broadcaster’s Hindi movie library, which is somewhat smaller compared to the vast Hindi movie clusters of JioStar (13 Star Gold- and Colors Cineplex-branded channels) and Zee (10 channels led by Zee Cinema and &pictures).

This table shows the channel numbers of Sony Max 1 across all five pay DTH platforms. DD Free Dish has not added the channel, despite some rumours that it might do so.

A necessary, long-overdue addition to Sony’s Hindi movie portfolio — with a refocus on Bollywood over South

With no other launches on the horizon, Sony Max 1 is SPN’s first new channel since the Tamil/Telugu sports channel Sony Ten 4 (now Sony Sports Ten 4) was launched in June 2021. This comes as the broadcaster downsizes its Hindi movie library to some extent in recent times. Many movies from the legendary Yash Raj Films (YRF) production house have moved to Disney Star, now JioStar, since 2021 — including recently Sultan (2016), a major Salman Khan-starring blockbuster.

Nevertheless, Sony’s Hindi movie cluster continues adding new titles every year. Recent releases in 2023–24 range from big-budget productions like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, Animal, Adipurush, Bade Miyan Chote Miyan and Ganapath, to smaller ones like Khel Khel Mein, Shaitaan, Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video, Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba and Srikanth, to the critically acclaimed Laapataa Ladies and 12th Fail. Moreover, the horror flick Adbhut was premiered as a direct-to-TV release in September 2024.

In addition, evergreen films like the Baahubali and KGF movies, Sooryavansham, 3 Idiots, both Munnabhai movies and the remaining YRF movies in the library — plus a number of niche movies from the early 2000s to the 2020s, usually aired in the late-night and early-morning hours — make up the rest of Sony’s Bollywood slate. SPN still has a strong relationship with T-Series Productions, as explored in our articles in 2021 and 2022 on the changing nature of the Hindi movie channel genre. Additionally, some Hollywood titles are dubbed into Hindi and shown on these channels.

Earlier, Sony Max was known for its heavy reliance on South Indian (especially Telugu) mass action flicks, thanks in large part to its relationship with Goldmines Telefilms, and it neglected its Bollywood library as a result. However, since the Goldmines channels repositioned themselves in 2022 and again in 2023 as the leader of the Hindi movie genre by viewership — with the main Goldmines channel cementing itself in the weekly BARC top 10 ratings — Sony has understood the need to focus more on Bollywood movies instead of trying to compete with Goldmines’ vast South library. Regardless, South movies still occupy a major part of the schedule of Sony Max, Sony Wah and now Sony Max 1.

How does the schedule of Sony’s Hindi movie cluster look like in 2025?

As far as how Sony’s individual Hindi movie channels have evolved in the mid-2020s:

• Sony Max remains the flagship property, with a slightly less South-heavy schedule than during the 2017–2022 period, and an increased focus on Hindi movies — even though South movies remain the bread-and-butter in terms of mass audience viewership.
• Sony Max HD is the only HD channel in the cluster, and is mostly a mirror (simulcast) of the SD feed. Again, both South and Hindi movies receive their due weightage, with some smaller, niche Hindi movies being aired in late-night/early-morning hours.
• Sony Max 2 was originally dedicated to classic movies, but now shows some recent movies — like Star Gold 2 or Colors Cineplex Bollywood — even though its schedule is mostly pre-1990s releases. It also occasionally airs Hollywood titles, but not South.
• Nowadays, Sony Wah — which was SPN’s only channel on DD Free Dish from 2022 to 2025 — predominantly shows CID reruns with some limited movies. However, since its sibling GEC, Sony Pal, was readded on DD Free Dish in April 2025, there is a chance that Sony Wah will reduce its reliance on CID going forward.

Moreover, some big movies like KGF: Chapter 2, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and Animal have been shown on the three main Hindi GECs of the broadcaster: Sony Entertainment Television, Sony Sab and/or Sony Pal, which generally do not air movies like they did until 2015. Indeed, movies are few and far between on major Hindi GECs nowadays, whether at JioStar, Zee or Sony — though they remain essential on most regional GECs.

In the days since its launch, Sony Max 1 has mostly followed the same scheduling template as the flagship Sony Max, with slightly more emphasis on Bollywood movies as compared to South ones. Sony Max 1 has also uploaded promos of some of its recent Hindi movies, including Laapataa Ladies, 12th Fail, Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, to its own website and social handles. Whether it continues to emphasise Hindi movies over Telugu and Tamil dubs in the long run remains to be seen.

The lack of more HD channels remains a problem for Sony’s small Hindi movie cluster

A more pressing problem is that Sony’s Hindi movie cluster continues to suffer from a lack of more HD movie channels. After Disney Star and Viacom18 merged to create JioStar, the combined broadcaster’s Hindi movie cluster consists of 13 channels, including 4 HD channels — Star Gold HD, Star Gold 2 HD, Colors Cineplex HD and Star Gold Select HD — while Zee’s 10-channel Hindi movie cluster has 3 HD channels: Zee Cinema HD, &pictures HD and the HD-only &xplor HD. These provide a large platform to showcase the vast Hindi, South and Hollywood libraries of JioStar and Zee in HD, putting SPN at a disadvantage.

It’s also worth mentioning that SPN was expecting to merge with ZEEL for two years, but merger discussions were finally terminated in January 2024. This was a big blow to Sony’s Hindi movie channels, as it was widely expected that they would be bolstered by merging with Zee’s larger existing Hindi movie channel cluster — including enlarging the number of HD channels. With that merger no longer on the cards, SPN has taken a step towards strengthening its own movie bouquet with the launch of Sony Max 1, but keeping it SD-only for the time being illustrates its urgent need for more HD channels in this genre.

In light of this, it will be a logical step for SPN to launch a second Hindi HD movie channel — with an HD feed of either the new Sony Max 1 or the existing Sony Max 2 — in order to better position its Hindi movie channel cluster as a strong competitor on its own, compared to the might of JioStar’s and Zee’s offerings. Sony Max HD alone cannot shoulder the burden of airing SPN’s Hindi movie library in HD, especially as there is no support from SET or Sony Sab in airing movies as there was a decade ago. But even without an HD feed for the time being, the launch of Sony Max 1 serves as an important reminder that SPN is here to stay as a key player in this genre — even in this era of the Reliance-backed JioStar’s dominance.