UMP Movies revamps film timings this week

The UK’s most watched Bollywood film channel, UMP Movies, will be making its biggest schedule change since its inception in the market.

UMP Movies, the Disney owned service will air films at fixed times from Wednesday 27th June. Currently, the channel, which is available on Sky Digital channel 797 free-to-air, broadcasts movies at scattered times. The more conventional appointment viewing is a method used by more established movie channels such as ZEE Cinema, Sony MAX, B4U Movies and Star Gold.

Since UMP Movies has been available in the UK, it surprised viewers with its film timings that started at random minutes past the hour, with the exception of the primetime 21:00 movie. Viewers have expressed their criticism of the random film times and now seems like the channel has had to give in to the response.

The channel will air nine Bollywood movie titles per day daily at 06:00, 08:30, 11:00, 13:30, 16:00, 18:30, 21:00, 23:30 and 02:00. Each slot has been allocated 2.5 hours – some movie times will be affected if length of copy is longer than the schedule time.

Also from the day of the change, the channel has added new film titles – many of which will air for the first time on UMP Movies but have been screened previously on other channels.

Unlike other Bollywood movie channels, UMP Movies will air movies back to back without any interruptions from magazine or music shows. This content will be available on the channel’s sister offering, UMP Stars, which launched as a free model on the Sky Digital platform earlier this month.

UMP Movies remains the UK’s most watched Bollywood channel giving Star Gold a run for its money in the official ratings, supplied by BARB.