In a bid to expand its reach and cater to the growing demand for free-to-air channels, Prasar Bharati plans to increase the number of slots on its free direct-to-home (DTH) platform, Free Dish, in 2024.
“We are in the process of getting additional transponders so that the range can be further increased and there is more bandwidth available and hopefully from the next year we should be able to offer even a greater variety of content to the viewers by allowing a larger number of channels to come,” said Gaurav Dwivedi, CEO, Prasar Bharati, told Storyboard18.
Earlier this year, Prasar Bharati announced plans to expand the capacity of its Doordarshan Free Dish from the current 166 TV channels to around 250 TV channels, as part of an expansion plan for the Public Broadcasting Service under the BIND Scheme.
The recent MPEG-2 auctions conducted by Prasar Bharati are a clear indicator of the growing popularity of its free-to-air DTH service. After clocking in a 12 per cent decline in revenue last year, Prasar Bharati bounced back with a 66 percent increase in revenue from MPEG-2 slots, reaching Rs. 1071 crore.
The growing audience universe is one of the major reasons behind the popularity of the Free Dish and the numbers are only growing. A recent FICCI-EY report predicts that the DD Free Dish base will exceed 50 million homes by 2025.
DD Free Dish doesn’t just come with an expansive reach it also brings together a heterogeneous mix in audience profile combining both urban and rural areas. Naturally, media buyers consider DD Free Dish to be a must-have platform for broadcasters targeting national advertisers with deep pockets and a wide target audience.
So while most channels generously loosened their purse strings at this year’s MPEG-2 auctions to get on to DD Free Dish, news channels also bid to secure their spots.