Sony Pal to be carried on Freedish

Multi Screen Media's latest addition to its Hindi GEC portfolio, Sony Pal, will now be placed on Prasar Bharti's free-to-air DTH platform, Freedish.

It is pertinent to note here that the channel will remain pay on the other distribution platforms, its business head Anooj Kapoor (also business head, Sab TV) shared.

Sony Pal is now airing repeat of Sab TV shows from 6-9 pm and Sony Entertainment Television's shows from 9 – 12 pm from Monday to Saturday.

The channel that launched on September 1, with the positioning 'Yeh Pal Humara Hai'. Even though the channel is airing repeats, the selection of content is basis the brand's core philosophy.

"We are not deviating from our core positioning. Shows like Ring Wrong Ring, FIR, Jeannie Aur Juju all have women at their core. Our idea on Sony Pal is to get a certain threshold level of ratings for the channel through these shows and then kick in fresh programming," Kapoor adds.

Sony Pal, the third Hindi GEC from MSM, opened with 11114 GVTs in week 36 of TAM (HSM, C&S, 4+). However, the channel failed to see significant growth in viewership numbers. It grossed 24613 GVTs in week 7 of 2015.

Sony Pal, since February 13, has taken all its original shows off air. The channel had launched with nine fiction shows, but owing to the poor performance of the shows, it had to shut five of them, within three months of their launch, thereby cutting down original programming by one-and-a-half hours.