SonyLIV

Short description: Indian video streaming service

Sony Liv

SonyLIV logo
Type of business	Subsidiary
Type of site	OTT platform
Available in	English Urdu Hindi Tamil Telugu Malayalam Kannada Marathi Bhojpuri Bengali Punjabi
Headquarters	Mumbai, India
Country of origin	India
Area served	Indo-Pacific, Middle East, Europe, Canada , South Asia and United States (via Sling TV)
Owner	Sony
Industry	Entertainment mass media
Products	Streaming media video on demand digital distribution
Services	Film production film distribution television production
Parent	Culver Max Entertainment
Website	Sony Liv
Registration	Required
Users	33 million (paid) 118 million monthly active users
Launched	22 January 2013 (2013-01-22)
Current status	Active

SonyLIV is an over-the-top streaming platform owned by Culver Max Entertainment. SonyLIV was introduced in 2013 as the first OTT service in India . As a streaming service, it provides live sports, original titles, other content titles from its own networks and content titles in India licensed from third-parties such as Lionsgate and ITV among others. The Sony Liv content library includes films, TV shows, series, and sports.

History

SonyLIV was launched on 23 January 2013, by Culver Max Entertainment.

LIV Sports

LIV Sports was launched on 1 June 2014 by Culver Max Entertainment (as a new sports streaming service exclusively for sports properties). LIV Sports was the official mobile and internet broadcaster for the 2014 FIFA World Cup starting 12 June 2014. LIV Sports aired both live and video-on-demand match content with statistics and analysis. However, this service was integrated into SonyLIV. Since then, LIV Sports has been a part of Sony LIV.

Sony LIV first revamp (2018)

SonyLIV logo from 2016 to 2020

Sony LIV underwent its first revamp and started to stream live television channels. Since then, Sony LIV has added many shows and movies to its portfolio. On 1 November 2018, Sony LIV and Lionsgate entered a multi-year content deal. As part of the deal, Sony LIV will offer an embedded Lionsgate Play with over 500 hours of premium-original series on its platform.

In 2019, Sony LIV started to stream live channels of other networks, including news channels.

Sony LIV second revamp (2020)

SonyLIV logo from 2020 to present

Sony LIV revamped its content and interface in May 2020 using AWS Cloud. Sony LIV uses Amazon ElastiCache to support real-time, in-memory caching at scale, Amazon CloudFront as a low-latency content delivery network, and Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) as a highly available message queuing service.

In June 2020, Sony LIV underwent a revamp for the second time, and this time they started to stream content from Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Pictures Television Studios, ITV and Reliance Entertainment. Also, SonyLIV started to stream its own original movies and series. Since 2020, SonyLIV has taken more of an active role as a producer and distributor for both films and series, offering original programming content through its online library.

SonyLIV was launched as a streaming service in the United States on Sling TV, streaming all the shows available in India on the app.

On 15 January 2021, WWE Network was launched in India through Sony LIV.

Sony LIV was launched in Canada on 14 October 2021. It was launched in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore on 25 February 2021. On 12 June 2021, as part of Europe Phase-1, Sony LIV was launched in Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, France, and the UK (9 April 2021). On 1 October 2021, as part of Europe Phase-2, Sony LIV was launched in Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, and Poland.

Content

Current broadcasting rights

• 2022 Asian Games (2023)
• US Open (2022–24)

Past broadcasting rights

• 2018 Asian Games
• 2014 FIFA World Cup

Current content partners

• ITV (TV network)
• Lionsgate
• Sky Studios
• WWE Network

Overview

SonyLIV's core library consists of 18+ years of content from Culver Max Entertainment's channels including Sony TV, Sony SAB, Sony Aath and Sony Marathi; and more than 700+ movies, which means a total of 40,000+ hours of television show coverage in Hindi and English.

Since its launch, SonyLIV has streamed live sports events.

It also features content titles in India licensed from third-parties such as Lionsgate and ITV among others.

History

After Sony Pictures Networks India's acquisition of Ten Sports Network, all TEN Sports live programs became part of its broadcast. Since then, SonyLIV has been streaming WWE Raw, WWE SmackDown and other WWE pay-per-view events, and UFC.

SonyLIV is the first Indian OTT media service platform to produce music content for a Hollywood feature film – producing music for the Hindi version of the blockbuster titled Passengers, starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. The singers for the original soundtrack titled Aadat included Jubin Nautiyal, Shirley Setia and Raftaar. Since then SonyLIV has produced more than 100 songs which are now available on the app, YouTube, JioSaavn and many other online music service platforms worldwide.

Varieties of anime originals from Animax were available on SonyLIV to stream. After shutting down a linear TV channel on 18 April 2017, Animax was made available exclusively as a digital streaming channel in India from 7 July 2017 to 7 May 2020.

SonyLIV also streamed cricket matches played by Pakistan, Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies and Zimbabwe, and Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

Until early 2021, it also streamed the National Basketball Association.

Beginning with the 2022 US Open, Sony Pictures Networks India will have the exclusive live television and digital rights to the US Open in India through 2024. As of August 2023, US Open would livestream on SonyLIV.

Sony LIV Originals

Sony LIV underwent a revamp in its appearance in June 2020. Since then, Sony LIV provides their original shows in 5–7 languages. Other than Hindi, Sony LIV releases originals in the other languages after 1–2 weeks from the release date.

Rocket Boys, Scam 1992, Maharani, Avrodh: The Siege Within, Chutzpah, Undekhi, and Tanaav are some of the popular Sony LIV original shows.

Genres

Sony LIV features content in the following key genres: comedy, crime, drama, horror and action.

Interface and features

Livestreaming

Select ongoing sports and related events to which the network or its partners have acquired rights, are also made available for livestreaming.

Sony LIV also livestreamed its own and partnered TV channels on the platform. As of August 2023, Sony LIV communicated to the subscribers that their Live TV Channels will be discontinued from Sony LIV from August 30, 2023.

Play Along

Option to register for and then play certain games is available in the app. This includes games such as QOTY (QUIZZER OF THE YEAR) and KBC Play Along.

Profiles

Up to 5 user profiles are available each with its own watchlist, play progress and watch history. Optional common PIN protection can be set for 'Adults' profiles. 'Kids' profile can be set without an option of setting any PIN.

Availability and access

Sony LIV is available based on location, subscription, and device hardware & software.

Locations supported

Sony LIV is available in India , Pakistan , UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, China , Taiwan, Australia , New Zealand, Philippines , Indonesia, Thailand, Germany , Switzerland , Norway , Netherlands, Spain , France , United Kingdom , Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark , Finland , Greece, Poland and Canada . It's also available in the United States via Sling TV.

Subscriptions

As of August 2023, multiple subscription options are available based on screen size, devices, stream quality and duration. Apart from full featured 'LIV Premium'; a 'mobile only' subscription option is available.

Devices and platforms supported

List of Sony LIV supported devices and platforms includes the following:

• TV sets
  • Amazon Fire TV (Android 5.0 and above)
  • Android TV (Android 5.1 and above)
  • Foxxum smart TV (2019 and above)
  • LG smart TV (webOS 4.x and above)
  • Netrange smart TV (2019 and above)
  • Samsung smart TV (2018 and above)
  • Sony Bravia smart TV (2017 and above)
• Media players
  • Amazon Fire TV (Android 5.0 and above)
  • Apple TV (tvOS 12.0 and above)
  • Chromecast (Generation 2 and above)
  • Roku
• Desktop website browsers
  • Chrome (72.0.3626.161 and above)
  • Edge (86.0 and above)
  • Firefox (69.0 and above)
  • Safari (12.0 and above)
• Smartphones
  • Android 4.4 and above
  • iOS 11.0 and above
• Tablets
  • Android 4.4 and above
  • iOS 11.0 and above
• Mobile website browsers
  • Chrome (72.0.3626.161 and above)
  • Edge (45.0 and above)
  • Firefox (69.0 and above)
  • Safari (12.0 and above)

Viewership

As of August 2015, SonyLIV had reached about 25 million views on a monthly basis.

Sony LIV security flaw

On 20 December 2019, Bengaluru-based security researcher Ehraz Ahmed discovered a security flaw in the Sony LIV app, that allowed to fetch sensitive user information such as profile picture, email address, date of birth, name and phone number of its registered users.

See also

• Culver Max Entertainment
• List of SonyLIV original programming
• ZEE5
• Crunchyroll
• Funimation
• Wakanim
• VRV
• Anime on Demand
• Crackle
• Hooq