Sun Neo introduces original shows lineup following a soft launch in April

Sun TV Network’s Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) Sun Neo may have gone on air on 15 April 2024, but that was only a small-scale soft launch with a few dubbed serials and limited distribution. Now, the channel has been officially inaugurated with a full-fledged launch, which took place on Sunday (16 June) at 7 pm and involves a host of new, original shows. Sun Neo has released some videos and posts on social media platforms, in addition to a brand video featuring its slogan, Dil Se Jiyo (Live From Your Heart), featuring the star cast of its upcoming serials that aim to expand its reach among the Hindi heartland.

In preparation for its full-scale launch, Sun Neo has also started to expand its reach across DTH platforms, with Airtel Digital TV adding its SD feed, and Tata Play adding both the SD and HD feeds. Thus far, the channel has been available only on Sun Direct and DD Free Dish, and the HD version was exclusive to the former. Its availability on DD Free Dish also makes it unofficially available on Dish TV — more precisely the NSS6/SES8 satellites used by its non-South Indian customers — which means that Dish TV’s sister company d2h is the only DTH platform not to carry Sun Neo at the time of launch.

With this launch, the Sun network — historically widespread in South India, and particularly dominant in Tamil through its flagship Sun TV — will bolster its free-to-air offerings, which currently take the form of Sun Bangla and Sun Marathi. Both of those channels launched their HD feeds in late 2023, and with Sun Neo HD already present on its home DTH platform, its addition by Tata Play expands the HD channel count of the country’s largest pay DTH operator to a whopping 111.

The below table shows the availability of Sun Neo’s SD and HD feeds on pay DTH platforms, in addition to DD Free Dish where the LCN is currently 32 but may not be fixed.

What new serials does Sun Neo offer?

To complement the four dubbed versions of other Sun channels’ serials (Kesari Nandhan Hanuman, Sangini Piya Ki, Lakshmi Mere Aangan Ki and Baawri Tere Naam Ki) that have been airing since its soft-launch in April, Sun Neo has now launched the following original serials made natively in Hindi, which air from Monday to Saturday.

1. Chatti Maiyaa Ki Bitiya at 7 pm
2. Ishq Jabaria at 7:30 pm
3. Saajha Sindoor at 8 pm
4. Nandini at 8:30 pm

In addition, Sun Neo will air the popular crime show Crime Patrol 2.0 at 9:30 pm, syndicated from Sony TV. There will not be any non-fiction programming, movies or reality shows, as Sun Bangla and Sun Marathi do not have them either, even though the South Indian GECs (Sun TV, Gemini TV, Udaya TV and Surya TV) all do.

Sun Neo’s launch is the culmination of the Sun network’s expansion beyond Southern India

The launch of Sun Neo marks the Sun network’s entry into the free-to-air Hindi GEC space, and comes five years after the launch of Sun Bangla in 2019 — the broadcaster’s first venture outside South India — and three years after Sun Marathi in 2021. While those channels (which are also free-to-air) go head-to-head with Bengali and Marathi pay channels — Star Jalsha/Pravah, Zee Bangla/Marathi, Colors Bangla/Marathi and Sony Aath/Marathi — Sun Neo instead intends to take on the Hindi free-to-air (FTA) sector, which is dominated by viewership from DD Free Dish.

Here the dominant player is Dangal from the Enterr10 Network, with the likes of Shemaroo TV, Shemaroo Umang and IN10 Media’s Ishara TV and Nazara TV among others. The big pay broadcasters’ rural-focused channels — Star Utsav, Zee Anmol, Sony Pal and Colors Rishtey — were all withdrawn from DD Free Dish for a second time in 2022 and have not returned. (Zee’s Big Magic, however, remains available on DDFD.) Therefore this is the first time since 2022 that a pan-Indian broadcaster’s Hindi GEC, other than Big Magic, is available on DDFD. Naturally, Sun Neo will not be competing directly with Star Plus, Zee TV, Sony TV, Colors, Sony Sab, etc. as they are pay channels targeting a more urban audience.

With its lineup of original serials that connect with the common person across the Hindi heartland, Sun Neo’s launch marks a turning point in the Sun Network’s ambitious project to shed its perception as a South Indian broadcaster. Its launch — along with that of Sun Bangla HD and Sun Marathi HD — was kept under wraps throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and only in late 2023, when those two regional HD channels went on air (without any announcement), did rumours of Sun Neo’s launch start circulating. Now, half a year later, Sun can finally lay claim to the most-watched language and genre of Indian television, which holds firm thanks to the power of DD Free Dish and which will cement it as a name to reckon with in Hindi-speaking regions.