All Time Movies: PEN Network's Free-to-Air Hindi Movie Channel
All Time Movies is a free-to-air Hindi movie channel from Mumbai-based PEN Network, the television arm associated with Pen Studios. Launched in April 2024 as a rebrand of the channel previously known as Dhinchaak, it airs Bollywood films around the clock and quickly became one of the more closely watched performers in India's free Hindi movie market, breaking into the top five Hindi movie channels in the Hindi-speaking market within its first weeks and holding a leading position among free channels.
The channel's rise matters because of where it competes. Free-to-air movie channels carried on DD Free Dish reach tens of millions of households that pay nothing for television beyond the cost of a dish and set-top box. In that market, a channel backed by a film studio with its own library and distribution relationships starts with an advantage — and All Time Movies is a case study in how PEN set out to use that advantage in the 2024-25 financial year.
Overview
All Time Movies is a Hindi-language, non-news satellite channel devoted entirely to films. Its official website reference in the WorldNM directory is Pen Studios' own site, penstudios.in, reflecting that the channel is a network brand rather than a standalone company with a separate public identity. The channel is free-to-air, meaning viewers do not pay a subscription fee for it, and its business rests on advertising sold against the large audiences that free distribution delivers.
Within PEN Network's portfolio, All Time Movies is one of two free-to-air Hindi movie channels the network committed to for FY25, the other being BFLIX. That two-channel strategy — rather than a scatter of smaller brands — was the network's stated focus for the year, and All Time Movies was positioned as the flagship of the pair on DD Free Dish.
History and Launch
The channel that viewers now know as All Time Movies began its transmission in April 2024, with industry forums recording the start on 12 April 2024. It was not an entirely new licence. PEN had acquired the licence of the existing Hindi movie channel Dhinchaak and renamed it; the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's permitted channels listing records the All Time Movies licence in the non-news category, authorised for uplinking and downlinking on GSAT-30, in Hindi and other Indian scheduled languages.
The rebrand was executed as a migration as much as a launch. PEN moved all distribution and content from its earlier DD Free Dish position, LCN 32, to LCN 17, with the channel rechristened All Time Movies at the new slot. On pay platforms the rollout followed within days: Tata Play launched All Time Movies from 16 April 2024 at EPG number 374, listed as a free-to-air Hindi movies channel. The speed of that sequence — rebrand, free-dish migration, pay-platform addition — showed a network determined that the new name would inherit the old channel's reach from day one.
The Channel It Replaced: Dhinchaak
To understand All Time Movies, it helps to understand the restless history of the slot it inherited. Dhinchaak had itself been through earlier identities in the Goldmines era, including a period branded as Goldmines Movies, before PEN's acquisition and renaming. The licence's own paper trail runs back through earlier holders before Goldmines and then PEN, a reminder that in India's free-to-air market, channel licences are valuable, tradable assets that change hands and names as networks rebalance their portfolios.
PEN's own previous attempt to build on acquired free-dish licences, involving channels of the ABZY group, had not proceeded as planned, according to industry reporting at the time of the Dhinchaak deal. Against that background, the clean execution of the All Time Movies rebrand in April 2024 — and its immediate ratings response — represented a more successful application of the same playbook.
Ownership and Network
All Time Movies belongs to PEN Network, part of the Pen Studios group headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Pen Studios — formerly Popular Entertainment Network — is an Indian film production and distribution company established by Dr Jayantilal Gada on 31 March 1983 and based in Mumbai. The company mainly produces and distributes Hindi films, alongside Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam titles, and its history runs from video rights trading in the 1980s and 1990s into theatrical production and distribution.
That parentage shapes the channel in two ways. First, PEN is a content owner as well as a broadcaster: a studio that has backed or distributed major theatrical releases can programme a movie channel from a position of library strength rather than buying every title in the open market. Second, the channel sits within a wider family of PEN television brands that has included BFLIX and I Love, whose licences were themselves renamed by the information and broadcasting ministry in an earlier round of portfolio housekeeping.
Programming and Schedule
The programming promise is contained in the name: movies, all the time. All Time Movies runs Hindi films around the clock, drawing on Bollywood titles — the mainstream Hindi cinema that remains the staple diet of the free movie market — rather than serials, reality formats or news. Contemporary viewer discussion of the channel in its first days noted back-to-back film presentation, and the network's own strategy statements emphasised content strengthening and a revisited content strategy as the drivers of its early ratings.
For a free movie channel, scheduling is a library-management exercise: marquee titles in the high-viewership evening and weekend bands, familiar catalogue films through the day, and rotation broad enough that a household landing on the channel at any hour finds a recognisable film already in progress. PEN supported the rebrand with investment not only in content but in connectivity — strengthening the channel's carriage across platforms in both urban and rural markets, as Indian Television reported when the channel entered the top five.
Language and Regional Focus
All Time Movies broadcasts in Hindi and addresses the Hindi-speaking market — the HSM, in industry measurement language — which spans northern and central India and Hindi-speaking audiences elsewhere. Its licence permits broadcast in all Indian scheduled languages alongside Hindi, Punjabi and English, but the channel's identity, promotion and ratings reporting are unambiguously Hindi and Bollywood-centred.
That focus places it in direct competition with the free and pay Hindi movie services of the large broadcast networks, as well as with fellow free-dish specialists. The competitive set discussed by viewers and trade press alike includes channels from Zee and Sony and free-to-air rivals that lean heavily on Hindi-dubbed South Indian films — a contrast trade commentary drew explicitly, noting that All Time Movies' Bollywood-led mix was winning attention in a segment where dubbed product is ubiquitous.
Availability and Platforms
Distribution was treated as a launch priority. On DD Free Dish, the channel occupies LCN 17, migrated from LCN 32 at the rebrand — a prominent low number on the free platform that anchors its mass reach. On Tata Play, it launched on 16 April 2024 at channel 374 as a free-to-air offering. Indian Television's ratings coverage described the channel, together with BFLIX, as widely accessible across all major distribution platforms, and the channel has continued to appear in satellite channel guides listing free-to-air Hindi movie services.
The combination is deliberate. DD Free Dish delivers the vast free audience, particularly in rural and small-town India; pay-platform carriage adds urban households and measurability. For an advertiser-funded channel, holding both simultaneously is what converts a film library into a ratings business.
Audience and Market Performance
The channel's early audience performance is the best-documented part of its story. By early June 2024, Indian Television reported that All Time Movies had catapulted into the top five Hindi movie channels, recording 39 GRPs in the Hindi-speaking market, ranking among the top two channels in the 15-plus free market with 97 GRPs, and retaining a strong urban footprint at 26 GRPs.
The momentum continued. In its 23rd week, the channel surged to second place among Hindi movie channels in the HSM market with 40 GRPs, and continued as the second most-watched channel in the HSM free market with 98 GRPs, having held a top-five position from weeks 20 to 23. For a channel that had existed under its new name only since April, sustaining top-tier free-market ratings through the following months marked it out as one of the notable free-to-air launches of 2024.
The Parent Studio Behind the Channel
All Time Movies cannot be separated from the theatrical business that feeds it. Pen India Limited marked 35 years in the industry in the early 2020s, and its recent theatrical slate explains the confidence behind its television expansion. The company was credited with bringing audiences back to cinemas after COVID-19 with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Gangubai Kathiawadi, followed by S. S. Rajamouli's global hit RRR, and went on to release films including Attack, Jersey and Vikram. Earlier successes associated with the studio include Kahaani and Shivaay.
Founder Jayantilal Gada, the company's chairman and managing director, remains its public face; his receipt of the UAE Golden Visa was reported as an honour for a producer whose company had become one of the longest-running in the industry. A television network attached to a studio of that standing programmes from strength: premieres, catalogue depth and promotional synergy between theatrical releases and channel schedules.
Recent Developments
Since its launch, the defining development has been consolidation rather than reinvention. PEN Network announced it would continue with its two free-to-air Hindi movie channels — All Time Movies and BFLIX — through FY25, signalling that All Time Movies was not a placeholder brand but the settled flagship of the network's free movie business. The channel has retained its DD Free Dish position and pay-platform presence, and its ratings trajectory through 2024 was reported by trade press as steady growth rather than a launch spike.
All Time Movies therefore stands as a compact illustration of how India's free television economy works in the 2020s: an old licence acquired and renamed, a studio library put to work around the clock, distribution secured simultaneously on the free platform and pay platforms, and success measured in the unforgiving weekly currency of GRPs — a currency in which, by its twenty-third week, this Mumbai channel was already trading near the top of its market.
