New Delhi: Prasar Bharati has extended the deadline for broadcasters to apply for MPEG-2 slots on DD Free Dish, pushing the cut-off to 3:00 pm on August 20, 2025. The online e-auction, which marks the 69th round of allocations, will now commence on August 21 and run for the period from August 29, 2025 to March 31, 2026.
The auction will be conducted under the e-Auction Methodology 2023, first announced in January, which allows participation from private satellite channels licensed by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, along with international public broadcasters cleared by the Ministry.
To ensure content diversity, Prasar Bharati has placed channels into specific genre-language buckets.
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Bucket A Plus covers Hindi general entertainment and music channels.
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Bucket A is reserved for Hindi and Bhojpuri movie channels.
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Bucket B includes Hindi and Urdu sports, music, Bhojpuri GEC, and movie channels.
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Bucket C is earmarked for Hindi and Urdu news channels.
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Bucket D groups devotional, spiritual, Ayurveda, Marathi, Punjabi, English news, and yet-to-be-launched regional channels.
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Bucket R covers all other regional language channels, except Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, and Punjabi.
Broadcasters must also provide clear evidence of genre classification, with at least 75% of programming aligned to the declared genre and 60% maintained monthly. Non-compliance could result in penalties, including disqualification from slot allocation.
The auction process begins with a starting reserve price of ₹9.60 crore across most buckets. Each subsequent round raises the reserve by 7.6%, with the reserve price expected to climb to ₹14.85 crore by the fifth round for certain categories.
To participate, broadcasters are required to deposit a non-refundable participation fee of ₹25 lakh, payable via Demand Draft or RTGS/NEFT.
DD Free Dish, India’s only free-to-air direct-to-home platform, remains a crucial distribution channel for broadcasters targeting mass audiences in rural and semi-urban markets.
