Indian sports television network
Television channel
Sony Ten is a group of Indian pay television sports channels owned by Culver Max Entertainment. It broadcasts cricket, football, golf, basketball, tennis, MMA, and professional wrestling events. It is a part of Sony Pictures Sports Network.
History
In January 2001, Taj Television Ltd. was formed in Dubai with Abdul Rehman Bukhatir of the Cricketers' Benefit Fund in Sharjah as a backer. The company launched the channel as TEN Sports (as part of its Taj Entertainment Network) on 1 April 2002.[1]
In 2006, Essel Group acquired Taj Television Ltd. and made it a part of Zee Entertainment Enterprises. However, the rights for Ten Sports in Pakistan were handed over to a company called Tower Two (Tower Sports Private Limited), another Essel Group subsidiary.[2]
In 2010, Zee rebranded another one of its sports channels, Zee Sports, as Ten Action which featured adventure sports and non-cricket content. In 2011 Zee launched a new channel called Ten Cricket, exclusively for cricket matches. In March 2016, all channels in the Zee network were rebranded as Ten 1, Ten 2, and Ten 3 respectively.[citation needed]
In August 2016, Sony Pictures Networks India acquired all of the sports channels under Zee from Essel. The agreement was signed in September 2016 and the acquisition was planned to be two-phased. With the completion of the first phase of the purchase Sony gained control of Indian sports channels once owned by Zee, which was completed in February 2017.[3][4] With the completion of the second phase, Sony gained access to the remaining sports properties owned by Zee in September 2017.[5][6]
On 18 July 2017, the sports channels were rebranded under the Sony umbrella with "Sony" added as a prefix, in addition to the launch of the HD simulcasts.[7]
Current channels
| Channel
|
Original Language
|
Audio Feed
|
Resolution
|
| Sony Ten 1
|
English
|
5.1 Surround Sound
|
SD+HD
|
| Sony Ten 2
|
English
|
5.1 Surround Sound
|
| Sony Ten 3
|
Hindi
|
5.1 Surround Sound
|
| Sony Ten 4
|
Tamil, Telugu
|
5.1 Surround Sound
|
Release timeline| 2002 | Sony Ten 1 |
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| 2003 |
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| 2004 |
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| 2005 | Sony Ten 2 |
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| 2006 |
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| 2007 |
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| 2008 |
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| 2009 |
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| 2010 | Sony Ten 3 |
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| 2011 |
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| 2012 |
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| 2013 |
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| 2014 |
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| 2015 |
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| 2016 |
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| 2017 |
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| 2018 |
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| 2019 |
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| 2020 |
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| 2021 | Sony Ten 4 |
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Sony Ten 1
It broadcasts events from the World Athletics Championships, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and Sukma Games. Its programming schedule also consists on live coverage of the tennis, rallying, horse racing, beach volleyball events and basketball. WWE Raw (along with the 30-minute pre-show) and WWE SmackDown are currently broadcast live weekly, along with NXT, Main Event, WWE Sunday Dhamaal and (generally) monthly pay-per-view specials.[8]
Sony Ten 2
It broadcasts football matches from European football leagues such as Bundesliga of Germany and MMA pramotion Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) of USA in English commentary.[9]
Sony Ten 3
It airs cricket matches from the Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England and Australia cricket boards. Usually these are broadcast in Hindi.[10] It also broadcasts football matches.[11][12] Sony Ten 3 and Sony Ten 3 HD broadcasts UFC matches in SD and HD format respectively in Hindi language.
Sony Ten 4
It was launched on 1 June 2021 in order to broadcast a mix of cricket, soccer, WWE and Olympics events in Tamil and Telugu.
