Sony unveils new content slate as Gaurav Banerjee outlines strategy on IP, regional growth and TV-digital integration

MUMBAI: The slate is part of SPNI’s recently articulated strategy of building a content-first, platform-agnostic and multilingual entertainment business, with television and Sony LIV positioned as complementary platforms rather than separate businesses. The company is also giving Sony LIV a new brand positioning, ‘It All LIVs Here’, positioning the streaming service as the digital home for SPNI’s entertainment and sports offerings.

At the heart of the strategy is a simple proposition articulated by Gaurav Banerjee, Managing Director and CEO of SPNI: create compelling stories and intellectual properties, and then distribute and monetise them across screens.

“We see ourselves as more of a content-creating ecosystem,” Banerjee said at the press conference, explaining that the company’s focus is on building the best stories, taking its signature IP multilingual and putting content across platforms.

KBC, Rohit Sharma, Crime Patrol lead the new slate

The festive slate is headlined by the return of Kaun Banega Crorepati Season 18, which premiered on Sony Entertainment Television and Sony LIV on August 10.

The new season carries the campaign thought ‘Sochna Padega’ and, according to Banerjee, is being designed to go beyond conventional trivia. He said the season incorporates AI and is intended to explore not just whether viewers know an answer, but how they apply reasoning when placed under pressure.

The company is also expanding its Hindi entertainment portfolio with cricket star Rohit Sharma, who is making his entertainment debut with his own show, scheduled to launch in September.

Another major announcement is the new season of Crime Patrol, with Ajay Devgn as the face of the franchise. Banerjee said the show is looking to reflect how crime itself has changed and explore how its depiction should evolve accordingly.

The slate also includes Indian Game Show, hosted by Bharti Singh and Harssh Limbachiyaa, bringing celebrities together for high-energy challenges. On Sony LIV, the company is bringing a new season of Scam, directed by Hansal Mehta, as well as movie premieres.

Regional expansion is central, but not at the cost of Hindi

A major part of SPNI’s strategy is the expansion of its regional programming.

The company has begun with Tamil and Marathi. In Marathi, Madhuri Dixit will host Kon Honar Crorepati, while Tamil programming includes MasterChef Tamil, featuring Samantha Ruth Prabhu, and Tamil Idol, with A.R. Rahman leading the search for Tamil Nadu’s next singing talent.

Banerjee said Tamil was chosen as an important starting point because of the size of the language market, its economy and its large television and digital ecosystem. But he made clear that Tamil is only the beginning.

SPNI intends to increase programming in Marathi and expand into Bangla and Telugu. Banerjee said the company wants to become a significant content creator across all major Indian regional languages.

For SPNI, the regional push is also about moving beyond a largely Hindi-focused footprint.

“We would love to programme for all of India,” Banerjee said, noting that the company’s programming has historically been concentrated on the Hindi-speaking part of the country. The objective now is to broaden that presence, beginning with Tamil but not stopping there.

He also stressed that Sony is not trying to enter every market simply to be first.

“We are not in a race to be first as much as we are in the race to be good,” he said, arguing that the company wants a distinctive approach and a set of capabilities that are uniquely its own.

At the same time, Banerjee made clear that regional expansion will not come at the expense of Hindi.

“Hindi is our most important market,” he said, adding that Sony intends to invest more in Hindi even as it expands regionally. He pointed to the new Hindi entertainment properties, the new season of Crime Patrol, original programming and increased investment in Hindi films as evidence of that commitment.

Why Sony believes ‘less is more’

Asked about Sony’s unique competitive advantage in a market witnessing significant consolidation, Banerjee pointed to the company’s focused and independent creative structure.

“That we are focused, independent, creative company,” he said, arguing that this allows Sony to give focused attention to the content it creates.

“Compared to many of our peers, we create less actually. So therefore, in some ways for us, less is more.”

He identified Sony’s portfolio of established IP as another major advantage. Such properties already have fan bases, and the company has accumulated deep knowledge of those franchises, allowing it to continually evolve them and keep audiences engaged.

Banerjee also cited the company’s financial strength as an advantage because it allows Sony to invest behind large content bets, including major sports properties such as the Asia Cup and Asian Games.

The importance of established IP becomes particularly visible during uncertain market conditions. Banerjee said franchises such as KBC benefit because advertisers often gravitate towards known and tested properties during uncertain periods.

He also highlighted Gemini as one of the major partners on the new KBC season, saying the partnership would transform the way the show is made and presented.

Sony is not abandoning non-fiction

The large number of non-fiction and reality properties in the new slate comes at a time when the genre is often viewed as expensive and potentially difficult to monetise.

Banerjee, however, said this is not a major concern for Sony because of the strength of its IP and advertiser support.

He said the company’s non-fiction shows over the past several years have been well supported through both advertising and subscription, adding that powerful IP remains something brands care deeply about.

The strategy is therefore not simply to increase the volume of non-fiction programming, but to rely on strong franchises, talent and differentiated formats that can attract attention and monetisation.

Sony does not see television and digital as an either-or choice

Asked whether television is still better than digital, Banerjee rejected the framing.

“When did I say that?” he responded, before arguing that the definition of television itself has changed.

According to Banerjee, television in India can no longer mean only pay television. It needs to include free television and connected television as well.

“The way I think of TV is it’s connected TV plus pay TV, plus free TV,” he said, adding that Sony sees growth across each of these dimensions.

The answer fits directly into SPNI’s broader strategy of operating as a content ecosystem.

Banerjee said the company is focused on creating good shows and then being comfortable distributing them everywhere. He said the same content can be monetised on both digital and television, while movies can similarly move across the company’s platforms and channels.

“We are going to be the place where good, high quality content gets curated and then the monetization is across multiple screens,” he said.

TV and streaming teams are now working more closely

That philosophy has also influenced SPNI’s organisational structure.

Banerjee said the earlier organisation reflected a period when television was the company’s core business and digital was still a small start-up. With digital now having grown substantially and becoming part of the company’s core, SPNI has brought content creation and monetisation closer together.

The aim is to have content teams concentrate on building the best stories while allowing those stories to play across platforms. At the same time, the company wants a more holistic view of subscription and advertising opportunities rather than treating television and digital as separate businesses.

Banerjee said the early results of the restructuring have been positive, with teams working together more cohesively and some of the new slate reflecting that collaboration.

Attention remains Sony’s most important metric

While many digital platforms have increasingly focused on retention, recommendation technology and keeping users inside their ecosystems, Banerjee said Sony remains firmly focused on attention.

“Content is our manager’s job,” he said, explaining that Sony’s business is centred on curating and creating stories.

He argued that attention remains the most powerful metric for driving retention. If audiences are sufficiently engaged with a story that they want to return for more, they become more likely to renew their subscriptions.

“If there was only one that we could change, we will change attention,” Banerjee said.

That philosophy also shapes Sony’s approach to competition from YouTube and Instagram creators, particularly in reality and game-show formats.

Banerjee acknowledged that competition exists everywhere but said focusing too much on competitors is not productive.

Instead, he said Sony needs to concentrate on its own strategic decisions: selecting the right stories, executing them well and marketing them effectively. Monetisation, he argued, follows from getting those elements right.

He also welcomed the rise of creators on YouTube and Instagram, saying the expanding creator ecosystem ultimately improves the creative landscape.

Gen Z: comedy, anime, sports and newness

The company is also conscious of the need to attract younger audiences, particularly Gen Z.

Banerjee pointed to Sony’s comedy programming, anime content and live sports, especially cricket, as important magnets for younger viewers.

He also said that innovation, differentiation and newness need to be built into everything Sony does because younger audiences are discerning and demanding.

“Everything that we do, we would want it to have a high degree of innovation, differentiation, newness,” he said.

Sports remains a central growth engine

Despite the emphasis on entertainment in the new slate, SPNI is not pivoting away from sports.

Asked whether entertainment IP would replace sports as a growth engine, Banerjee said sports remains “very much front and center” of the company’s efforts.

The next several months include the Asian Games and India’s tour of New Zealand, while the company also has cricket rights involving England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka, alongside the Asia Cup and other properties.

Banerjee said the sports portfolio has deep engagement, builds fandom and is profitable, making it central to Sony’s growth ambitions.

The official festive sports calendar runs from August 15 to December 1 and includes the India tour of Sri Lanka, Women’s T20 Asia Cup, Asian Games and India’s all-format tour of New Zealand.

At the same time, Sony is conscious of the economics of sports rights.

Responding to a question about the diversity of its sports portfolio and the limited visibility of non-live sports content, Banerjee said cricket remains particularly important to the company and pointed to its position in cricket streaming and broadcasting.

On European football, he said Sony has a strong position and would like to do more, but added that the company has to ensure its sports portfolio remains valuable to fans without becoming value-destructive for the business.

“Sports rights, it’s an easy way to get attention. It’s not always a long-term proper business to pay for that attention,” he said.

Advertising and subscription expected to grow together

SPNI is also looking to grow both sides of its monetisation model.

Asked about the balance between advertising growth and a recent subscription slowdown, Banerjee declined to discuss detailed numbers but said the company expects robust growth in both advertising and subscription.

He highlighted particularly strong growth in digital subscriptions and said the new slate should create more value for Sony’s digital subscription business, including direct-to-consumer subscription growth.

Banerjee also said he remains confident about the broader three-year outlook. He cited India’s economic growth and rising purchasing power as supportive factors for premium entertainment, while pointing to continued growth in television, strong digital growth and the regional business as key sources of expansion.

He said SPNI expects to remain in investment mode in regional markets for the next couple of years before those businesses become profit engines.

Moving beyond spot advertising

Another part of Sony’s strategy is to offer advertisers deeper integration with its content.

Asked whether the company plans to extend the kind of bespoke brand integrations associated with KBC across its other IPs and regional programming, Banerjee said yes.

He said the breadth of Sony’s slate gives it an advantage in creating such solutions, provided integrations remain connected to the core of the show rather than appearing intrusive.

The objective, he said, is to move advertising beyond traditional spot buys and create deeper engagement between brands and audiences.

International markets remain an opportunity

SPNI also sees significant potential in international markets, particularly among the Indian diaspora.

Banerjee identified the UK and North America as important markets and said the company is looking at how it can improve distribution, marketing and brand-building efforts there.

He said much of Sony’s core content connects well with premium audiences internationally, making the diaspora market valuable, but acknowledged that the company needs to do more in terms of marketing and distribution.

He indicated that the company would share more on those efforts in the near term.

Movie acquisitions and the economics of content

The discussion also touched on the sustainability of movie acquisitions and whether the media industry needs a different business model.

Banerjee said Sony needs to be disciplined when acquiring third-party intellectual property.

When it comes to Sony’s own IP, he said the company can be more generous in its investment decisions. But when acquiring somebody else’s IP, the company has to ask whether the economics make sense.

He drew a parallel between movie acquisitions and sports rights: both require discipline around the underlying business model.

SPNI also remains open to producing films through its production arm, although Banerjee said the company is not in a hurry to expand aggressively in that direction.

More broadly, he rejected the idea that there is necessarily a fundamental problem with the television and OTT model.

His argument is that if Sony can consistently curate high-quality content, achieve the right hit rate and monetise that content across multiple screens, the underlying model can remain healthy and profitable.

What would make 2026 a success?

For Banerjee, success will ultimately be measured through the engagement and attention generated by Sony’s intellectual property.

Asked what would need to happen for the company to look back on 2026 as a successful year, he pointed to IP engagement and attention, alongside the reach generated as Sony expands its presence across markets.

That provides a useful lens through which to view the entire new slate.

The company is not simply adding more programmes to an already crowded market. It is attempting to build a larger portfolio of IP across languages and genres, take established franchises into new markets, create new entertainment properties, strengthen digital subscriptions, retain the relevance of television and use sports to drive large-scale engagement.

The festive slate therefore represents more than a programming refresh. It is a test of SPNI’s broader bet that good content can remain the common currency across television, streaming, regional markets, advertising and subscriptions.

For Sony, the answer to a consolidating media market appears to be less about matching competitors title for title and more about building a distinctive content engine, one that can create fewer, stronger bets, deepen existing IP, expand into underserved regional audiences and distribute those stories across every screen where audiences are willing to watch.