New Delhi: Prasar Bharati has completed its mid-cycle allocation of vacant MPEG-4 slots on DD Free Dish, awarding carriage capacity to 10 television channels for the remainder of the 2026-27 financial year.
The successful broadcasters include Bharat Express, Republic TV, Vistaar News, Nation 27, News India 24X7, R. Bangla, Living India News, Prag News, Rengoni and RE News. The allotted slots will be available from June 5, 2026, through March 31, 2027.
The allotments were made through the public broadcaster’s 99th MPEG-4 e-auction, conducted specifically to fill vacancies that emerged after the completion of the annual slot allocation process earlier this year.
Filling Gaps in the FY27 DD Free Dish Line-up
The latest exercise follows Prasar Bharati’s 97th MPEG-4 annual e-auction for FY27, in which 39 channels secured carriage on the country’s largest free-to-air DTH platform for the full financial year. The mid-year auction was designed to utilise capacity that became available subsequently, ensuring optimal use of the platform’s spectrum resources.
Applications for the auction were invited on May 19, with broadcasters given until May 26 to submit their bids before the e-auction process was conducted.
Mix of News and Regional Broadcasters Secure Capacity
The auction covered vacant slots across multiple categories based on content genre and language. News and current affairs channels competed under the G1 category, while non-news broadcasters were grouped under G2.
Regional broadcasters were accommodated through three separate language buckets. R1 covered channels in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam; R2 included Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and Odia channels; while R3 catered to other regional languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, excluding Hindi, Urdu and languages already covered under R1 and R2.
The structure reflects DD Free Dish’s continued emphasis on maintaining a diverse mix of national and regional programming while extending access to broadcasters across linguistic markets.
Reserve Prices Reflect Market Demand
Ahead of the auction, Prasar Bharati had prescribed reserve prices for each category. The reserve price for the G1 News and Current Affairs category was set at ₹61.65 lakh, while the G2 non-news category carried a reserve price of ₹60 lakh.
Among regional language categories, reserve prices were fixed at ₹31.65 lakh for R1, ₹34.83 lakh for R2 and ₹49 lakh for R3.
The pricing framework is intended to reflect varying levels of demand, reach and audience potential across content genres and language markets on the DD Free Dish platform.
Strategic Importance of DD Free Dish
The latest auction underlines the continued importance of DD Free Dish as a distribution platform for broadcasters seeking access to millions of free-to-air television homes across India. For news and regional channels in particular, presence on the platform remains a key component of audience expansion strategies, especially in markets where free television consumption continues to be strong.
With the fresh allotments now completed, the 10 successful channels will join the existing DD Free Dish line-up for the balance of the 2026-27 cycle.
