Star India, Zee Entertainment, Sony Pictures Network India, and Viacom18 have made a comeback to the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati run Free to Air (FTA) DTH platform DD Free Dish reposing their faith in the platform over a year after they exited the platform.
Star India run Star Utsav, Sony Pictures Network India run Sony Pal, Zee Entertainment run Zee Anmol and Zee Anmol Cinema, and Viacom18 run Colors Rishtey have made a comeback to the FTA DTH platform. Prasar Bharati half an hour ago declared the results of the 45th E-Auction conducted today for vacant MPEG-2 slots on DD Free Dish.
With FTA broadcasters struggling and many exiting DD Free Dish, this is a major boost for the DTH platform in these tough times. The return of top Hindi GECs from big broadcasters at such a time shows their faith in the platform, out of which they had pulled back last year.
The broadcasters had last year unanimously decided to exit the FTA DTH platform, citing that they didn’t want the pay DTH subscribers to move to the FTA DTH platform after the New Tariff Order came in. However, DD Free Dish has continued to prosper with Dangal TV becoming the number 1 channel in India courtesy of its presence on DD Free Dish and other major DTH platforms.
DD Free Dish will now carry 12 channels from the top broadcasters namely Star India run Star Utsav, Sony Pictures Network India run Sony Pal, Zee Entertainment run Big Magic, Zing, Zee Anmol, Big Ganga, Zee Biskope, Zee Punjabi, and Zee Anmol Cinema, and Viacom18 run Colors Rishtey, MTV Beats, and BDM.
