Day 1 of DD FreeDish MPEG-2 slots auction brings in over Rs 40 cr

Prasar Bharti conducts an e-auction every year to fill the MPEG-2 TV slots of DD FreeDish, in which the winning TV channels are installed from April 1, and remain available of DD FreeDish platform till March 31 next year.

Accordingly, this time, too, Prasar Bharti invited applications from private television broadcasters for the 75th online e-auction for the MPEG-2 TV slots of DD FreeDish. The e-auction was held on February 19, 2024.

As per industry sources, two channels secured the MPEG-2 TV slots on Day 1 of the e-auction for a combined value of over Rs 40 crore.

The e-auction is being held in several rounds, in which slots of a total of 96 TV channels will be filled.

For Bucket A+, which includes GEC-Hindi/ Urdu channels, Rs 15 crore is the starting reserve price. For Bucket A, which has Movie-Hindi/ Urdu channels, Rs 12 crore is the starting reserve price; while Rs 10 crore is the starting reserve price for Bucket B, which has Music-Hindi/ Urdu channels, Sports-Hindi/ Urdu channels, all channels of Bhojpuri language, and all other remaining genres of Hindi/ Urdu.