Six news channels pay more to secure DD Free Dish slots

Information channels have elevated their spending to safe distribution on the free direct-to-home (DTH) platform, DD Free Dish, after Prasar Bharati revamped its e-auction technique.

Six information channels – News18 India, ABP Information, NDTV India, Republic Bharat, Zee Information and TV9 Bharatvarsh – have collectively spent Rs 100 crore to safe slots on the DD Free Dish platform, in accordance with folks aware of the e-auction course of.

That is twice the quantity they spent in earlier yr’s e-auction. The value for slots within the present public sale has risen 50-100% for the six information channels.

Information channels have paid Rs 16.68 crore on common for every slot, in comparison with Rs 9 crore final yr. The reserve value for information channels was set at Rs 7 crore.

Senior executives of main TV information networks mentioned the remaining information channels that haven’t bid to date don’t have any choice however to bid for the slots because the trade’s name to take a seat out the e-auction has turn into infructuous.

The information broadcasters had been earlier threatening to boycott the continued auctions, contending that the carriage price for the following monetary yr would turn into unviable for the information style.

Prasar Bharati has modified the e-auction methodology by permitting channels from different genres to bid for slots in a specific bucket that was earlier reserved for a particular style.The information channels worry that the change in methodology will result in huge inflation within the worth of DD Free Dish slots.

The Information Broadcasters and Digital Affiliation (NBDA) and Information Broadcasters Federation (NBF) had written a letter to data and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur searching for his intervention within the matter. Nonetheless, some member channels of each associations went forward and took part within the e-auction regardless of a boycott name given by the NBDA and NBF.

Prasar Bharati’s collections from the sale of vacant DD Free Dish slots have crossed Rs 450 crore on the fourth day of the annual e-auction, which kicked off on March 14, mentioned folks aware of the event.

The general public broadcaster is conducting its annual e-auction for promoting vacant slots on DD Free Dish, which reaches an estimated 40-50 million properties. The slots are being auctioned for a one-year interval from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024.