The auctions for shelf space on Doordarshan FreeDish continued yesterday as Tv news channels competed with each other fiercely outside the category reserved for news and current affairs channels.

The successful ones included Bharat24 (Rs. 17.15 crore), India TV (Rs. 18.65 crore) and Good News Today (Rs.17.90 crore).

Meanwhile, In the auctions for A+ category that happened yesterday for slots on FreeDish, Hindi news channels Times Now Navbharat, Aaj Tak and News Nation managed to be successful, amongst others, after paying hefty winning bids.

According to industry sources, the auctions for MPEG 2 slots on Doordarshan FreeDish took place on a Sunday as a technical glitch had stopped the proceedings on Saturday.

The winning bids, according to the sources, were Times Now Navbharat Rs.15.15 crore, Aaj Tak Rs. 15.10 crore and News Nation Rs. 15.05 crore.

The price in A+ Bucket was high as it is a category that’s meant for general entertainment channels, but tweaked rules now allow channels from all genres to bid at the end of all rounds if slots are available in the A+ category.

Meanwhile, despite initial protests from TV news channels’ associations, the member-channels last week had taken part in the auction of Bucket C (news and current affairs category) slots on pubcaster Doordarshan’s FreeDish (http://www.indianbroadcastingworld.com/several-news-channels-buy-dd-free-dish-slots/), a FTA DTH platform.

FreeDish, a venture of public broadcaster Prasar Bharati,  according to industry estimates, has over 45 million subscriber base, mostly in rural and semi-urban areas, thus forming a big source for eyeballs that could be monetised in the form of advertising revenue. And, it’s the eyeballs that force Indian television news channels to bid aggressively for limited shelf space on this free to air DTH platform.

The present auctions that are underway are for the period April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024 and are considered important revenue generators for the pubcaster.