Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has opened the application process for allotment of vacant MPEG-2 slots of DD Free Dish DTH platform for the period of September 9, 2023 to March 31, 2024. The slots will be allotted through an e-auction process to be tentatively held on September 12, 2023.
The process will be conducted in accordance with e-auction methodology for allotment of DD Free Dish slots to private channels. Only satellite channels and companies holding valid permission by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting can participate. International public broadcasters licensed by the I&B ministry can also participate.
The public broadcaster has categorized TV channels in different buckets based on the genres/language of channels. The reserve price for Bucket A+ which comprises All GEC (Hindi) channels is Rs 14.17 crore. The Bucket A which includes All Movie (Hindi) and teleshopping channels (all languages) has a reserve price of Rs 12.81 crore. Bucket B, which comprises Music (Hindi) Channels, Sports (Hindi) Channels, and all channels of Bhojpuri language has a reserve price of Rs 11.24 crore. The reserve price for News and Current Affairs (Hindi) that is Bucket C is Rs 10.57 crore. For Bucket D which has all other remaining Genre of Hindi, Devotional/Spiritual/ Ayush/, all genres of Marathi, Punjabi, and Urdu channels, the reserve price is Rs 8.52 crore. Bucket R1 – all channels in languages not covered above, has a base price of Rs 1.62 crore.
DD Free Dish DTH service is owned and operated by Prasar Bharati. It was launched in December, 2004. DD Free Dish is the only Free-to-Air (FTA) Direct-To-Home (DTH) Service where there is no monthly subscription fee from the viewers.