The mercury and money is rising as the race to bag a slot on pubcaster Doordarshan’s FTA DTH platform, Free Dish, gains momentum.

The first day of the 52nd  e-auctions for slots on the FTA platform with a massive reach yesterday saw some of the popular TV news channels failing to get a berth, while a news kid on the block, Q TV, made its debut in the entertainment category with a winning quotation of approximately Rs. 16 crore (Rs. 160 million).

Though no official communication has been put out by DD on first day’s winning slots, industry sources said Aaj Tak (approximately Rs. 15 crore/Rs. 150 million), ABP news (approximately Rs. 16 crore/Rs. 160 million), TV9 (approximately Rs. 17 crore/Rs. 170 million) and News Nation (approximately Rs. 18 crore/Rs. 180 million) managed berths on Free Dish.

The base price for the news category was Rs. 7 crore (Rs. 70 million).

However, three other popular news channels, India TV, Zee News and Republic Bharat, are yet to find a place though sources said Republic Bharat had bid for a slot.

Other successful bidders yesterday included Star Utsav (approximately Rs. 15 crore/Rs.150 million), Sony Pal, Dangal, Big Magic, Shemaroo TV that started last year only, B4U Movies, Big Flix Movies, B4U Music, Zee Anmol Cinema, Bhojpuri Cinema, Zee Bioscope, Azad TV, B4U Bhojpuri and Big Ganga Magic.

Categorization of TV channels in different buckets or categories in accordance with genres/language of channel and their starting reserve price for the allotment period, according to a DD notification, are as below:

Prasar Bharati had invited applications for allotment of vacant MPEG-2 slots of DD Free Dish DTH platform for the period of April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.

The slots will be allotted in accordance with policy guidelines for allotment of DD Free Dish slots on a pro rata basis.

Only satellite TV channels licensed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for downlinking in India are eligible for slots on Free Dish.

In case the applicant company is other than licensee, the document/agreement signed between license holder company and applicant company, authorizing the applicant/bidder for distribution of the channel and bidding on behalf of the licensee, would also have to be submitted.

International public broadcasters ( like the BBC or DW) licensed/registered/permitted by MIB can also participate in e-auction. However, in the latest round of auctions names of international channels haven’t yet surfaced.

Free Dish is India’s only open access/FTA DTH service. Owned and operated by DD, the service began as DD Direct+ in December 2004, which was re-named as DD Free Dish in August 2013. Having made an one-time payment to buy a dish and a box fro approximately Rs. 4,000, Free Dish viewers can watch 80 SD MPEG-2 TV channels and 18 SD MPEG-4 channels, apart from access to 40 radio channels.

Free Dish claims to have a reach of approximately 30 million TV households, which is 15 per cent of the total TV HHs in the country.