Termed as being linked to the sixth anniversary celebrations of its flagship channels, the new on-air look has been a major project for the SET team. Kacon Sethi, executive V-P, who led the team, says: "From Day One, slick and unique packaging has been one of the strengths of Sony Entertainment Television, and our viewers have always had very high expectations of the channel. Hence the on-air look refreshes every two years, and this time we felt that our sixth anniversary would be the perfect time to make the change happen."

The new look has been executed by the Hollywood-based award winning design house Belief, which bagged a pitch that was open to seven other design houses from the USA and UK, a company release states.

"We‘ve done three sets of designs for the new look," Sethi reveals, "And you will see it evolve every six months."

On the programming front, Monday saw the launch at 9:30 pm of Kutumb, the new daily soap from the - you guessed it - Balaji stable,.

Kutumb is the first new serial on Sony after its rightsizing exercise and runs monday to Thursday. It telecasts immediately after Kkusum, the current channel driver, which is on air five days a week at 9 pm.

SET will be watching on tenterhooks as two new Star serials - Aruna Irani‘s maiden directorial venture, Des Mein Nikala Hoga Chand takes the 9-10 pm slot on Mondays and another Balaji production, Kasauti Zindagi Kay will beam from Monday to Thursday at 8:30 pm. The launch of the two Star serials coincides with the whittling down of gameshow Kaun Banega Crorepati to twice a week.

Initial reports of Kutumb appear to be positive though with viewers taking kindly to the "different" plotline.