Prasar Bharati announces 58th online e-auction for allotment of vacant MPEG-2 slots on DD Free Dish

India’s public broadcaster Prasar Bharati on Tuesday invited applications for the allotment of vacant MPEG-2 slots of DD Free Dish on a pro-rata basis for the period between April 1st 2022 and March 31st 2023. Earlier in January, the free service provider had announced the 56th e-auction for MPEG-4 slots during the same period.

Bidding for the MPEG-2 slots will be open to TV channels of all genres and languages with a reserve price of up to Rs 15,00,00,000 per year. The auction is scheduled to start from March 7th 2022 and the last date to submit applications is February 28th 2022 till 3 pm.

Channels participating in this e-auction must pay a mandatory non-refundable processing fee of Rs 25,000 online and a participation fee of Rs 1,50,00,000 should be paid through demand draft. Prasar Bharati will issue a letter of allotment to successful bidders along with a payment schedule and prescribed format of agreement better the service provider and broadcaster.

As usual, the unsuccessful bidders will get back the participation fee within three weeks after the declaration of the e-auction results while the successful bidders who won slots need to make payments in ten 10 monthly instalments with each instalment 1/10 of the difference of bid amount and participation fee. 

In case of failure to pay the required amount within the scheduled date, a 14.5% interest per annum will be applicable and if the channel still doesn’t deposit the required amount then the participation fee along with any instalment already deposited will be forfeited and the channel will be discontinued from DD Free Dish Platform. 

After successful payment of 1st instalment by the allotted broadcaster, its channel will be placed on DD Free Dish. If the broadcaster does not submit the first instalment in the given time then its slot allotment will be cancelled by Prasar Bharati.