Mumbai desk · India TV listings
AagMaal TV is a Mumbai-based editorial EPG for DTH, digital cable and free-to-air homes. Every listing on this page is in Indian Standard Time.
On the bill · Friday 4 Sep 2026
Key art below is original editorial illustration — not licensed studio posters. Titles are desk-made examples of how Hindi GEC, movie windows, sport, news and regional fiction actually stack in IST.
A shared North Indian haveli, a swing nobody sits on, and three generations arguing over who still belongs in the house. This is the spine of Hindi prime-time fiction: inheritance, loyalty, a lantern-lit courtyard, and a 21:00 IST appointment the whole family already knows by heart.
On a real box you will find this shape on Star Plus, Colors and Zee TV — not this title. Use the GEC genre block, then save the LCN.
Direct answer
An Indian television broadcast guide — also called an electronic programme guide or EPG — is the on-screen and online listing of what each linear channel is showing, in Indian Standard Time, grouped by the genre the broadcaster declared to TRAI.
AagMaal TV publishes that map in English for households on Tata Play, Airtel Digital TV, Dish TV, d2h, Sun Direct, HITS, IPTV, digital cable and DD Free Dish. We do not sell a set-top box. We explain how the box you already own is organised.
Channel names are national. Channel numbers are not. Your logical channel number (LCN) is chosen by your distributor, which is why Star Plus can sit on one number in Pune and another in Kochi. The reliable way to search is brand + genre + language, then save the LCN as a favourite.
This page was written by Meera Iyer, broadcast editor at AagMaal TV Media Private Limited, Goregaon East, Mumbai, and last updated on 4 September 2026.
Regulation, made usable
Under TRAI interconnection and quality-of-service rules, every broadcaster declares one genre, and every distributor must place same-genre channels together, with each channel appearing once. If your guide feels random, the box is out of compliance — not the channel.
Star Plus, Colors, Zee TV, Sony SAB, plus regional GECs such as Sun TV, Star Maa, Asianet, Star Pravah and Zee Bangla. This is where prime-time fiction lives.
Star Gold, Sony MAX, Zee Cinema and English movie feeds. Hindi film channels still dominate Friday and Sunday nights on pay-TV.
Aaj Tak, NDTV 24x7, India Today, Republic and a long tail of Hindi, English and state-language news channels. Night bulletins cluster after 22:00 IST.
Star Sports and Sony Sports hold most cricket, football and tennis rights on linear TV. When a match overruns, it swallows the rest of the remote.
Pogo, Cartoon Network, Hungama and Nick sit in a consecutive kids block. After-school (16:00–19:00 IST) is their peak, not prime time.
Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Punjabi music feeds. Useful as a “holding channel” between GEC episodes.
Factual, travel and science brands. Often mixed with English entertainment in smaller DTH packs.
A consecutive spiritual block, typically stronger in early morning IST than at 21:00.
The TRAI remainder bin: shopping, teleshopping, niche and unclassified feeds. Scroll past it when you are hunting GEC.
Tonight · editorial sample
This grid is an editorial illustration of how a Friday night is usually stacked on national pay-TV. Exact episode titles move with the broadcaster; the shape of the evening does not. Last reviewed 4 September 2026, 14:00 IST.
| IST | Hindi GEC | Movies | Sports / News | South GEC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early-evening soaps and repeats | Matinee hangover / catalogue film | Evening news belts begin | Regional fiction warm-up | |
| Access prime: family drama | Hindi film premiere window opens | Pre-match or market wrap | Tamil / Telugu / Malayalam lead-in | |
| Comedy + core fiction | Weekend film, first hour | Live cricket if scheduled | Flagship regional soaps | |
| Peak fiction hour | Film continues | Live sport or debate | Peak South GEC | |
| Late fiction / reality | Second film or end credits | Night bulletins | Late regional wrap |
Movie window
Hindi movie feeds (Star Gold, Sony MAX, Zee Cinema) open a premiere-shaped window from about 19:00 IST. Regional film belts follow local prime. Posters here describe the kind of film that lands in that slot, with a full synopsis under each still.
A night-shift lawyer walks Marine Drive in the rain after a client vanishes between Churchgate and a yellow-taxi stand. Neon, Art Deco façades and wet asphalt: the catalogue noir that movie channels drop on Friday once the GEC soaps have started.
Slot: 19:00–22:00 IST on Hindi movie feeds. If cricket overruns, this film is the first thing the EPG cuts.
A small-town season comes down to one unfinished over under floodlights. Dust, a red ball, and a crowd that already knows the result in its bones. This is what a sports-drama movie looks like on a night when Star Sports does not have live cricket — and what live cricket replaces when it does.
Slot: 21:30 IST overflow. Plan Friday as GEC-or-cricket, not both.
A dancer returns to a temple town to finish a family vow. Gopuram stone, a bronze bell, silk on the steps. South Indian festival cinema still gets a linear window that Hindi GEC never quite copies — afternoon lead-in, then a 19:00 IST local prime.
Look in the Movies genre, Tamil language, not under Hindi GEC.
A runaway wedding party takes the ghats at sunset. One cream Ambassador, a silk scarf out the window, teak forest in gold light. Sunday movie-channel energy: big landscape, simple plot, a song you already know is coming.
Slot: Sunday 13:00 and 19:00 IST catalogue premieres.
Pune monsoon. A father and teenage daughter keep missing the same bus outside a wada house. Bougainvillea, wet stone, no speech for the first minute. Marathi cinema on linear TV is quieter than Hindi masala and often better at 18:00 IST than at Hindi prime.
Find it beside Star Pravah in language, then in the Movies block.
Series belts
Hindi GEC peaks at 21:00 IST. Kids peak after school. Tamil family fiction has its own 19:00. News waits until 22:30. Infotainment never needed prime at all. Filter the grid if you only want one belt.
Three generations, one courtyard, a swing that is furniture and threat. Daily 22-minute episodes. This is why Hindi GEC still events the north and west at 20:00–22:00 IST: you do not sample it, you keep a pact with it.
A paying-guest comedy: rent day, cricket in the corridor, steel tiffin lids as percussion. The Sony SAB-shaped hour — the second remote in the house while the first remote stays on family fiction.
A Chettinad dining hall, brass lamps, jasmine, and an argument that has lasted sixteen years. Tamil prime is 19:00–22:00 IST. Do not look for this on the Hindi GEC number you saved in Delhi.
Containers, sodium lamps, a harbour investigator who works after the soaps. Late-fiction from 22:00 IST, when GEC either goes darker or cedes the set to news.
22:30 IST. Glass studio, red lamp, an anchor who has already done the 21:00 debate. News is a belt, not a channel: morning show, market wrap, then this night hour.
Terrace kites, laundry lines, a turquoise sky. Kids peak is 16:00–19:00 IST. If you hunt this at 21:00 you are in the wrong genre block.
Dawn in a Kerala spice kitchen: copper, cardamom, a mundu at the fire. Factual television does not need prime time. It needs the Infotainment genre and a favourite slot for Sunday morning.
How the signal reaches the set
Tata Play, Airtel Digital TV, Dish TV, d2h and Sun Direct. You pick a-la-carte channels or a bouquet. The distributor may discount the broadcaster’s MRP but cannot charge more than MRP. Your LCN is unique to that operator.
A local multi-system operator, or a HITS player such as NXT Digital, feeds the building. Genre grouping still applies. Support is local; channel maps change when the MSO renegotiates a bouquet.
Prasar Bharati’s free-to-air DTH platform. The channel list is set by auction and public-service carriage, not by a monthly pack. Capacity has grown into a large FTA bouquet plus educational and radio feeds. It is not interchangeable with a paid Tata Play or Airtel lineup.
JioCinema, Netflix, Amazon MX Player and broadcaster apps are on-demand. They do not use TRAI LCN maps. If you only stream, you still use this page to understand what linear India is broadcasting — useful for news, cricket and family GEC that still premieres on TV.
Language belts
Hindi GEC still sets the national advertising clock, but the remote in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata or Pune is a different product. Search AagMaal TV by language first, genre second.
Hindi heartland GEC, movies and news. Prime time 20:00–22:30 IST is the money belt.
News, movies and infotainment. Smaller linear share; stronger in metros and hotel packs.
Sun TV and competing GECs. Afternoon and 19:00–22:00 IST fiction are the local prime.
Star Maa, ETV and peers. Film and GEC both travel well on DTH into the Gulf as well as Andhra and Telangana.
Asianet and Malayalam news. Dense cable + DTH mix; Gulf diaspora viewing is a real overlay.
Colors Kannada and Udaya-side GECs. Pricing on some South HD feeds has been at the top of 2026 a-la-carte bands.
Star Pravah, Zee Marathi, Colors Marathi. Mumbai and Maharashtra prime tracks Hindi by about 30–45 minutes.
Zee Bangla, Star Jalsha, Colors Bangla. Strong 18:00–22:00 IST fiction habit.
Directory
Numbers below are not LCNs. They are directory IDs on this page. Punch the brand name into your box guide to get the operator-specific number.
No channels match that search. Try a brand, genre or language.
Flagship Hindi general entertainment. The 20:00–22:00 IST fiction block is still the reference prime-time clock for much of north and west India.
Hindi GEC with reality and fiction. Often paired with Star Plus in the same JioStar distribution conversation for 2026 packs.
Hindi general entertainment from ZEEL. Check a-la-carte versus bouquet: Hindi packs and All-in-One packs price differently each RIO cycle.
Comedy-leaning Hindi GEC. A frequent “second screen in the house” during the 20:00 IST hour.
Hindi film channel. Friday and Sunday nights are the catalogue and festival windows.
Hindi movies, often the cricket-adjacent movie brand in the Sony cluster. Confirm MAX / MAX 2 / MAX 1 — they are different LCNs.
ZEEL’s core Hindi movie feed. Look beside it for Zee Bollywood and Zee Anmol Cinema on value packs.
Hindi news. Evening and 22:00 IST belts are the appointment slots; the rest is rolling coverage.
English news. Metro packs and hotel lineups carry it even when Hindi news dominates the household remote.
Live sport. When cricket is on, this channel becomes the de facto prime-time GEC for that night — plan around it.
Sony’s sports spine. Rights rotate by year; always read tonight’s event title in the EPG, not the channel brand alone.
Kids entertainment. Peak is after school, not 21:00 IST. Park it in Favourites if there is a child in the house.
Kids / animation. Usually sitting in the same consecutive kids genre block as Pogo and Hungama.
Tamil flagship GEC. If you are on Sun Direct, this is often easier to find than on a Hindi-first national DTH map.
Telugu general entertainment. Regional HD a-la-carte pricing sat at the upper end of JioStar’s 2026 RIO band.
Malayalam GEC. Same 2026 pricing note as other premium South HD feeds — check SD versus HD before you add both.
Marathi GEC. In Mumbai it often shares the evening with Hindi GEC rather than replacing it.
Bengali general entertainment. Fiction from 18:00 IST is the local habit; Hindi prime is a second remote, not the first.
How-to
You do not need AagMaal TV open while you do this. You need the Guide button and the genre list TRAI already forced onto the box.
Press Guide or EPG. Every legal distributor must list all channels it carries.
Go to General Entertainment, Movies, News and Current Affairs, Sports, Kids, Music, Infotainment, Devotional or Miscellaneous.
The number beside the logo is yours alone for that operator. It will not match a neighbour on another DTH brand.
Tamil versus Hindi, SD versus HD. HD is often a nearby block, not the same number.
Store the LCN. That is the only number that matters on your remote.
Prime time
India runs on a single time zone. There is no spring-forward. A 21:00 IST soap is 21:00 IST in Guwahati and in Ahmedabad. That is why national GEC still events the country on one clock, even when the language on screen is not Hindi.
Sports rights punch a hole in that clock. A weekday IPL or an India international can move the household from Star Plus to Star Sports without anyone thinking of it as “changing genre.” Plan Friday nights as GEC-or-cricket, not GEC-and-cricket.
Kids peak earlier. Devotional peaks at dawn. News has a morning showbelt and a 21:00–23:00 debate belt. If you treat the whole box as one prime time, you will keep missing the show you actually wanted.
Masthead
AagMaal TV Media Private Limited is a Mumbai publisher. We write in English for an India audience (en-IN). We cite TRAI genre rules, DTH operator maps and broadcaster distribution offers. Sample grids are labelled as editorial illustrations when they are not a live ingested EPG.
We do not take carriage fees to hide a channel. We do not pretend an LCN is universal. We do not mix OTT catalogues into linear listings without saying so.
Editor: Meera Iyer. Registered office: Plot 18, Film City Road, Goregaon East, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400063, India. Phone +91 22 6964 1100. Email [email protected].
FAQ
AagMaal TV is an India-based editorial television broadcast guide published from Mumbai at aagmaaltv.in. It explains electronic programme guides, TRAI channel genres, DTH and cable listings, and prime-time viewing in Indian Standard Time. It is not a DTH operator or a streaming app.
Indian television prime time is generally 19:00 to 23:00 IST, with the largest fiction and live-sport audiences between 20:00 and 22:30 IST. India does not use daylight saving, so these hours stay fixed through the year.
Logical channel numbers are assigned by each distributor. Tata Play, Airtel Digital TV, Dish TV, d2h, Sun Direct and local multi-system operators each build their own LCN map. The channel brand stays the same; only the number changes.
Broadcasters declare one genre. Distributors must list channels of the same genre consecutively and show each channel once. The nine TRAI genres are Devotional, General Entertainment, Infotainment, Kids, Movies, Music, News and Current Affairs, Sports and Miscellaneous.
No. DD Free Dish is Prasar Bharati’s free-to-air DTH platform. Paid DTH and digital cable sell a-la-carte channels and bouquets under TRAI tariff rules, with a distributor retail price that cannot exceed the broadcaster’s MRP.
Yes. Every clock, grid and timestamp on AagMaal TV is Indian Standard Time (Asia/Kolkata, UTC+5:30). Convert from another zone by subtracting or adding the offset from IST.
Some broadcasters also stream on their own apps or licensed OTT services. AagMaal TV is a broadcast guide for linear television. App availability, geoblocks and subscription packs are set by each rights holder, not by this site.
AagMaal TV Media Private Limited is headquartered in Goregaon East, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, and publishes at https://aagmaaltv.in/.
No. Posters on aagmaaltv.in are original editorial illustrations that show the shape of Indian film windows and TV series belts. They are not licensed studio posters, and the titles are desk-made examples, not a live rights schedule.
Contact
Editorial corrections, missed genres and distribution notes: we read Hindi and English. For a missing channel, we still need your operator name and subscriber ID — we cannot retune a box from this website.
AagMaal TV Media Private Limited