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Tag: MPEG-2 slots

  • Prasar Bharati sets a higher reserve price for Hindi movies & devotional channels in its 61st e-auction

    Prasar Bharati sets a higher reserve price for Hindi movies & devotional channels in its 61st e-auction

    Mumbai: Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has invited applications for allotment of vacant MPEG-2 slots of the DD Free Dish free direct-to-home (DTH) platform for the period 17 August 2022 to 31 March 2023. The 61st e-auction process will be tentatively held on 10 August.

    The public broadcaster has categorized the vacant MPEG-2 slots under six buckets including Bucket A for all Hindi movie channels, Bucket R1 for devotional channels, Bucket A+ for all Hindi general entertainment (GEC) channels, Bucket B for all Hindi music channels, Hindi sports channels, Bhojpuri GECs, Bhojpuri movies and Hindi teleshopping channels, Bucket C for Hindi, English and Punjabi news and current affairs channels and Bucket D for remaining genre language channels.

    The reserve price of the MPEG-2 slots is set as high as Rs 14.37 crore and as low as Rs 4.40 crore. Notably, the prices for Hindi movie channels and devotional channels are the highest while Hindi GECs and news and current affairs channels are low-priced in comparison.

    Prasar Bharati recently concluded its 60th e-auction where it allotted two MPEG-4 slots to the channels Swaraj Express SMBC and Sanskriti 24×7 for the period 5 July 2022 to 31 March 2023.

    In a recent interview, former Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati revealed that the public broadcaster earned as much as ~Rs 750 crore from the sale of vacant DD Free Dish slots in 2021.

    With an estimated reach of 50 million viewers, DD Free Dish is the largest DTH platform in the country. The platform has 167 TV channels including 145 channels in standard definition (SD) MPEG-2, 21 channels in SD MPEG-4 and one channel in high-definition (HD) MPEG-4. The public broadcaster intends to expand its overall number of channels to 200.

    Also Read: Prasar Bharati has seen a big change in its revenue in the last five years, says former CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati

  • Free Dish MPEG-2 slots to be allotted on pro-rata basis in 59th e-auction: Prasar Bharati

    Free Dish MPEG-2 slots to be allotted on pro-rata basis in 59th e-auction: Prasar Bharati

    Mumbai: Prasar Bharati has invited applications for allotment of vacant MPEG-2 slots of DD Free Dish DTH platform on a pro-rata basis for the period from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. The e-auction process will be tentatively held on 23 March.

    The TV channels have been categorised into six buckets namely ‘R1,’ ‘A+,’ ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D’ in accordance with the genre/language of the channel. Bucket R1 is reserved for devotional i.e, spiritual Aayush channels with a starting pro-rata reserve price set at Rs 20 crore. A+ is reserved for Hindi GEC channels with a reserve price starting at Rs 15.45 crore. Bucket A is reserved for Hindi movie channels with starting reserve price of Rs 13.05 crore. Bucket B is reserved for Hindi music channels, Hindi sports channels, Bhojpuri GEC channels, Bhojpuri movie channels, and Hindi teleshopping channels with a starting reserve price of Rs 11.10 crore. Bucket C is reserved for Hindi, English and Punjabi news and current affairs channels with a starting reserve price of Rs 10.05 crore. Bucket D is reserved for remaining language/genre channels with a reserve price of Rs 7.05 crore.

    Prasar Bharati has said that the e-auction will be bucket-wise starting with the bucket having the highest reserve price i.e, from ‘Bucket R1’, and will progressively go down in the order of reserve price. 

    The e-auction will be conducted in accordance with policy guidelines for allotment of DD Free Dish slots notified on 15 January 2019 and amended from time to time.

  • Prasar Bharati invites applications for vacant MPEG-2 slots in 56 e-auction

    Prasar Bharati invites applications for vacant MPEG-2 slots in 56 e-auction

    Mumbai: Prasar Bharati has invited satellite TV channels to bid for vacant MPEG-2 slots on DD Free Dish DTH Platform through the 56th e-auction. Successful bidders would be distributed on the platform for the allotment period between 1 January and 31 March 2022.

    The bidding process shall be open to all language genre channels starting at a reserve price of Rs 1.94 crore and going up to Rs 5.51 crore.  The e-auction, if required, will be conducted on 24 December and the last date to submit applications is on 23 December by 3 p.m.

    The public broadcaster has categorised TV channels into different buckets in accordance with the genre/language of the channel and defined a starting reserve price for the allotment period.

    Only satellite channels licensed by the ministry for information and broadcasting for downlinking in India would be allotted slots on DD Free Dish. Only license holder company or their authorised distributor partners can apply for allocation of DD Free Dish slots.

    Applicants must also pay a mandatory non-refundable processing fee of Rs 25,000 and participation fee of Rs 1.5 crore. For unsuccessful bidders, the participation fee will be refunded within three weeks after the declaration of the results of e-auction. For successful bidders, participation fee will be adjusted in the final installment of the carriage fee/bid amount.

  • Prasar Bharati concludes 54th e-auction; adds five new MPEG-2 slots

    Prasar Bharati concludes 54th e-auction; adds five new MPEG-2 slots

    Mumbai: Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has added five new MPEG-2 slots for its DD Free Dish DTH platform at the end of the 54th e-auction.

    Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) Ishara TV, teleshopping channel Naaptol, music channel Showbox, Marathi channel Sun Marathi, and Bengali channel Enterr10 Bangla have been successful in acquiring slots. The new channels will be on DD Free Dish platform from 16 August onwards.

    The allotment period for the channels is from 16 August, 2021 to 31 March, 2022 and successful bidders will have to make payment in six monthly instalments, said Prasar Bharti.

    The public service broadcaster had invited applications for the vacant slots on 31 July, which were only open to the satellite channels licensed by the ministry of information and broadcasting for downlinking in India. Only license holder companies or their authorised distributor partners could apply for allocation of DD Free Dish slots.

    Applications for the e-auction were received under five different buckets in accordance with genres/language of channel and their starting reserve price for the allotment period.

    The five buckets C, A+, A, B and D are classified as follows.

    Bucket C – news and current affairs (Hindi), news and current affairs (English) and news and current affairs (Punjabi) channels.

    Bucket A+ – All general entertainment (Hindi) channels.

    Bucket A – All movie (Hindi) channels.

    Bucket B – All music (Hindi), sports (Hindi), GEC (Bhojpuri), movies (Bhojpuri) and teleshopping (Hindi) channels.

    Bucket D – All other remaining genres (language) and teleshopping (regional) channels.

  • 54 channels submit bids for 44th DD Free Dish e-auction

    54 channels submit bids for 44th DD Free Dish e-auction

    MUMBAI: Fifty four channels have submitted bids for the 44th DD Free Dish e-auction, which will be tentatively held on 24 February for MPEG-2 slots.

    HSM channels: 

    According to sources close to the development, two Hindi GECs Dangal and Big Magic have bid for the auction. Among other HSM channels, seven Hindi music channels including Showbox, 9XM, MTV Beats and eleven Hindi movie channels like B4U Movies, Enter10 are also looking at vacant MPEG-2 slots. All the major players like News18 India, NDTV India, Zee News, Aaj Tak, Republic Bharat have also placed their bids.

    Regional channels: 

    In the regional cluster seven Bhojpuri channels including Big Magic Ganga, Zee Biscope, B4U Bhojpuri, one Marathi channel, four Punjabi channels and four regional news channels have placed their bids. Moreover, four religious channels are also participating the auction.

    Recently DD Free dish increased MPEG-2 slots on its platform. Private TV channels can participate in this e-auction to add TV channels on DD Free Dish, for the period from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021. In the 42nd e-auction for allotment of 8 MPEG-2 slots the channels that came on board were mostly new.

    As per the rules mentioned by the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, only satellite channels licensed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) would be allowed to participate in the allocation. International Public Broadcasters licensed/ registered/permitted by the MIB can also participate in the e-auction.