NW18, Republic Bharat makes it to Free Dish after stiff bidding

After some fierce bidding and spending of serious money for a berth on Doordarshan’s FTA DTH platform, Free Dish, 57 channels can heave a sigh of relief for having made it to the final list.

The news category saw maximum see-sawing with TV channels trying to outbid competition for limited available space in the MPEG-2 slots on Free Dish. Republic TV Bharat and Network18 group, according to industry sources, each dished out over Rs. 20 crore/Rs. 200 million for a slot.

Rajat Sharma-founded India TV and Prannoy Roy-started NDTV India both are said to have coughed up over Rs. 12 crore (Rs. 120 million).

The base price for news channels was Rs. 7 crore/Rs. 70 million.

According to Prasar Bharati News Service (PBNS), 57 channels were successfully allocated slots in various buckets or categories after “multiple rounds of robust bidding that spread through the entire week” having started on February 22, 2021.
“Subject to completion of all formalities, the channels who have successfully bid for slots will come on air on DD Free Dish platform from April 1, 2021,” PBNS reported.

The channels that were successful at the end of the bidding included new entrant The Q (in the Hindi GEC category with a bid of over Rs. 150 million), Shemaroo TV, Colors Rishtey, Star Utsav, Zee Anmol, Sony Pal, Big Magic, ABZY Movies, BDM, Dhinchaak, Manoranjan TV, Star Utsav Movies,, 9XM, B4U Bhojpuri, Dabangg, Filamchi, Mastii, MTV Beats, Aaj Tak, NDTV India, News18 India, Zee Hindustan, Zee News, ABP News, Fakt Marathi, Shemaroo Marathibana, Zee Zabardast, Aastha, Sadhana TV and Sanskar TV, News Nation, Manoranjan Grand, ABZY Dhakad, Bflix Movies, Aaho Music and Azaad.

The six categories or buckets, as DD calls them, were BucketA+ that included all Hindi GECs; BucketA was for Hindi movie channels; Bucket B was for Hindi music channels, Hindi sports channels, Bhojpuri movies and GECs, and Hindi tele-shopping channels; Bucket C consisted of news and current affairs channels in Hindi, English and Punjabi languages; Bucket D comprised other remaining language channels and Bucket R1 comprised devotional/Aayush/spiritual channels.

An earlier story on the e-auction process of DD Free Dish could be read at

Few popular news channels yet to book slots on DD Free Dish

Free Dish claims to have a reach of approximately 30 million TV households, which is approximately 15 per cent of the total TV HHs in the country and experts opine the massive reach mostly spans semi-urban and rural areas of India.

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“This initiative will empower subscribers to pay online and subscribe to the channels they want to watch and get it activated on their TV sets in real-time without any delay. Without needing to undertake any software development, LMOs can approach Mobiezy for their pre-built and pre-integrated solution that uses NXTDigital’s news APIs and can be up and running with their own mobile apps within just a few days.”

RU Ediriwira, Group CTO, NXTDigital Limited

“With the launch of Partnership for Growth 3.0 we intend to expand our network with 40 new NXTHUBs, each offering up to 650 live TV channels and broadband. Our efforts are focused on harnessing the convergence of technologies, developing robust apps and creating new business models that will help the overall ecosystem, delivering the best experience to our subscribers. We hope to achieve a stronger foothold in the rural regions of the country and grow our subscriber base.”

N.K. Rouse, COO, NXT Digital Ltd

“One of the key principles of the Hinduja Group is ‘Partnership for Growth’. After 2.0 saw the launch of HITS to connect LMOs in even the most remote locations through the only satellite-based cable TV platform in India; 3.0 focuses not just on strengthening the overall ecosystem we have built, but harnessing the convergence of technologies – to be delivered through a national network of NXTHUBs. Video and broadband are only the beginning of the digital highway of services that we have developed for roll-out backed by a robust suite of innovative apps developed by service providers exclusively for our LMOs and subscribers.”

Vynsley Fernandes, MD & CEO, NXTDigital Limited

“Wireline broadband is becoming ever more important not only in connecting homes across the country but also small to large enterprises-to the digital economy. The NXTHUBs will be the perfect point-of-presence to offer broadband services to cater to these consumer needs.”

Yugal Kishore Sharma CEO, ONEOTT Intertainment Limited

Amazing and grim battle for survival. Guess it will end up in Supreme Court. All that NCLT asked Zee to do was to file a reply to Invesco petition for a EGM. Now this is getting too serious. So far Invesco has been hammered for demanding an EGM. What is Zee upto? Ofcourse my lawyer community knows better!

Ashok Mansukhani, Corporate Law and Media Law Advocate at Ashokmansukhani Associates

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NW18, Republic Bharat makes it to Free Dish after stiff bidding

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