Sony Channel (also known as Sony Entertainment Television) was a general entertainment channel based of the branding of the same name in India alongside defunct sister channel, Sony Max both of which were available in the African market in 2007 and 2011 respectively.
Some of the programming featured on these channels included The Amazing Race, Scrubs, Baywatch, Baggage, Drop Dead Diva, 1000 Ways To Die, Fear Factor, The Boondocks, Fatal Attraction, My Wife And Kids, Friends, Crossing Lines and Impractical Jokers.
The channel were seen as another alternative to brands like M-Net, Universal and BBC Brit and went as far as competing with the likes of Comedy Central and MTV. Sony Channel and Sony Max had everything going for themselves until that fateful show Gogglebox changed everything.
In 2015, Sony made their first attempt in producing local content with the launch of Gogglebox a series where random people watch various content particularly on DStv and you got to see their reactions to whatever was viewed on the platform.
It was this same show that caused a lot of scandal not only to the production crew but Sony in general. The crew of the show claimed to have viewed content that MultiChoice wasn't giving their consumers which led to the cancellation of the series.
Reruns were made available but from that point forward Sony had been alienating themselves from society offering less new content and often shuffling shows between channels despite their accessibility to the market.
In 2018, Sony Crime was introduced as a replacement to Sony Channel offering shows like Orange Is The New Black, Person Of Interest, CSI and Law And Order which kind of signalled the end of the brand in Africa of course most hoped that they would be saved.
But from what's been seen with several linear channels like Disney XD, FOX, FOX Life and EVA usually when a channel stops offering new content it usually means the channel is on the chopping which was the case with DStv as viewers had to resort to M-Net and Universal.
The Sony Channels were made available for another year until they were subsequently discontinued on another defunct platform Cell C's Black.
Sony Entertainment Television operated a number of linear channels like the kids channel POP and music channel KISS all of which were terminated as the company now opts to supply content to the market and not linear channels.
As of 2022, the only regions to supply a Sony linear channel are in Latin America and Germany while others like Turkey, Asia and the UK join Africa on their demise.
As mentioned, the names of the Sony Channels in Africa were derived from India which remain active but for different programming and audience while DStv uses the channel numbers for Sony Channel and Max for sports or as Vince McMahon calls it Sports Entertainment.
But that's the only thing Sony took from India the brand names as the channels were managed by the UK which has since then been acquired by Narrative Capital with the Sony branding removed from all assets.
Sony Max never existed in those regions and most if not all the Sony Channels are using the "Great!" branding and Sony Channel now Great TV! features shows like Castle, M*A*S*H and The Persuader and Hart To Hart basically old series.
Is Sony's linear offering in better hands I guess but with streaming taking the media by storm you never know if some restructuring will take place but all the best for the new management.
