Prasar Bharati, India’s public service broadcaster on Monday announced the list of 15 channels that have secured slots on India's free Direct-to-Home (DTH) provider, DD Free Dish. The channels secured their slots on the DD Free Dish platform through the 46th e-auction held by the broadcaster between June 17 to June 20. It was earlier announced that the slots gained through the 46th e-auction would be valid between July 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021. In the first week of June, Prasar Bharati announced that five major general entertainment channels (GEC) including Star Utsav and Colors Rishtey were selected through the 45th e-auction held on June 3.
Prasar Bharati Awards DD Free Dish Slots to 15 Channels
The channels selected through the 46th e-auction include four Hindi devotional channels and 11 news channels.
Aastha, Sanskar, Satsang and Vedic are the Hindi devotional channels that are set to be part of the DD Free Dish platform beginning July 1. The 11 news channels include Chardikala Time TV, a Punjabi news TV along with India News, India News Haryana, India News MP/Chhattisgarh, India News Rajasthan and India News UP/UK.
Additionally, Hindi news channels including Live Today, News State UP/UK, Samay, Sudarshan News and VIP News have also gained slots on the DD Free Dish platform.
“Thankful to all the Broadcasters for the high degree of interest and robust bidding for MPEG4 slots of DD FreeDish,” Shashi Shekhar, CEO of Prasar Bharati said in a tweet
According to an earlier notification issued by the broadcaster on June 6, the bidding to the e-auction was open to all channels at a reserve price of Rs 5 lakhs per annum. Further, the notification said that the broadcasters who were interested to bid in the 46th e-auction were required to pay processing fee and a participation fee. Prasar Bharati set a processing fee of Rs 25,000 and a participation fee of Rs 1.25 lakhs.
Star Utsav and Colors Rishtey were Selected Through 45th E-Auction
The public service broadcaster on June 3 announced that Star Utsav, Colors Rishtey, Sony Pal, Zee Anmol and Zee Anmol Cinema were selected through the 45th e-auction. The public service broadcaster said that the five GEC would be part of the platform between June 10, 2020 to March 31, 2021.
