Prasar Bharati CEO Gaurav Dwivedi has drawn a clear line on the future of DD Free Dish, categorically ruling out any move to encrypt the country’s largest free-to-air direct-to-home platform, according to a Storyboard18.com report.

Addressing concerns from an increasingly vocal broadcasting industry, Dwivedi said the public broadcaster has no plans to convert DD Free Dish’s MPEG-2 service into an addressable or encrypted system.

The remarks were made during a recent stakeholder meeting attended by broadcasters and industry representatives.

Citing people present at the discussion, the Storyboard18.com report added Dwivedi, while responding directly to a query on whether DD Free Dish would be encrypted and the timeline for such a transition, stated unambiguously that the platform will never be encrypted.

DD FreeDish is the country’s biggest DTH platform with an unverified subscriber base of about 40-50 million (industry estimates) and is subscription-free, unlike similar private sector DTH platforms.

The broadcast industry has long demanded that FreeDish too should be brought under regulations that are put on other similar distribution platforms. TRAI had suggested earlier that FreeDish signals should be encrypted, apart from other measures undertaken to streamline operations.