Major GEC Channels Including Star Utsav Make its Reentry into DD Free Dish

Prasar Bharati, India’s public service broadcaster on Wednesday announced that major general entertainment channels (GEC) including Star Utsav and Colors Rishtey would make a reentry into DD Free Dish, India’s free Direct-to-Home (DTH) provider. The broadcaster said that five channels were selected in its 45th e-auction held on Wednesday. Prasar Bharati initially invited applications from satellite TV channels to fill up the vacant slots on its DD Free Dish platform in mid March. However, the e-auction which was scheduled for March 31 was delayed to June 2 and further to June 3.

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Star Utsav and Colors Rishtey Now Part of DD Free Dish Platform

The channels that were selected through the e-auction process together with Star Utsav and Colors Rishtey include Sony Pal, Zee Anmol and Zee Anmol Cinema.

Shashi Shekhar, CEO of Prasar Bharati said in a tweet that DD Free Dish now offers a compelling mix of channels across multiple genres.

“With this the lineup on DD FreeDish is a compelling mix of Public Channels, General Entertainment, News Channels apart from free to air access to educational content/channels which have become critical to keeping the school year going for students despite the COVID-19 pandemic [sic],” Shekhar said in a tweet on Wednesday.

The channels that were selected on Wednesday would be part of the platform between June 10, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

The broadcasters who were interested to be part of the e-auction were required to pay Rs 25,00,000 as processing fee along with a participation fee of Rs 1.50 crore. In March, Prasar Bharati said that only the channels that were licensed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting would be allowed to participate in the e-auction.