What is the reach of public broadcaster Doordarshan’s free-to-air DTH service FreeDish? The media and entertainment industry till now has been bandying around various unconfirmed figures — from 30-40 million homes — that still is bigger than the subs of private sector DTH players.

In the past, the government has demurred to hand out data on DD FreeDish except some details on the private sector TV channels that bid aggressively and pay high amounts of money, at times, to get a shelf space on the limited capacity of the DTH service.

However, yesterday in parliament, the government did venture into a territory that it has not treaded on before. It put a number — still approximate — to the number of TV households that subscribe to FreeDish: 45 million.

“Presently, about 45 million TV homes in India have DD FreeDish,” Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L Murugan conveyed to his fellow parliamentarians in Lok Sabha (Lower House) when asked about the reach of DD’s DTH service.

However, he made it clear that the figure of 45 million was an industry estimate, hinting that the government may not still have first-hand knowledge about the reach of FreeDish or that no data has been collated by the government on the issue.

Pointing out that the DD FreeDish is “widely available” across the country, the junior MIB Minister added the service that has full coverage across the country and, in case of Andaman & Nicobar islands, a special 10 channel C-Band satellite DTH service is in operation.

Some parliamentary colleagues of Murugan had sought details on the current reach and coverage of the Doordarshan’s DTH services and

whether there were any plans to expand the coverage in regions with poor terrestrial or cable connectivity.

The parliamentarians had also asked whether the distribution of free DTH connections had “significantly increased the viewership” of Doordarshan TV channels in rural and remote areas.