Prasar Bharti invites applications for allotment of vacant MPEG-2 slots on DD Free Dish

India’s public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has invited applications for the allotment of vacant MPEG-2 slots of DD Free Dish DTH platform on a pro-rata basis for three months period between January 1st, 2022 and March 31st, 2022.

The allotment of available slots will be done through the 56th online E-Auction process which will be tentatively held on the afternoon of December 24th, 2021. Applications to participate in the auction can be submitted till 3pm on December 23rd, 2021.

Bidding will be open only for satellite channels licensed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for downlinking in India along with interntaional broadcasters permitted by the MIB. The starting reserve price in Bucket A, Bucket A+, Bucket B, Bucket C, and Bucket D will be Rs 3.34 crore, Rs 4.13 crore, Rs 2.94 crore, Rs 5.51 crore and Rs 1.94 crore respecitvely.

Bucket A+ will cater to Hindi GEC channels while Bucket A includes Hindi Movie channels. Bucket B is for Hindi Music, Hindi Sports, Bhojpuri GEC, Bhojpuri Movies, and Hindi Teleshopping channels. Bucket C will cater to Hindi, English, Punjabi News channels. Lastly, Bucket D is for all other remaining genre/language channels and regional teleshopping channels.

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 crore should be paid through demand draft. Unsuccessful bidders will get back the participation fee within three weeks after the declaration of the e-auction results.