DD Free Dish allots 10 MPEG-4 slots in mid-year auction for FY27 cycle

NEW DELHI: DD Free Dish has found a few more seats at the table. Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has completed its mid-year 99th e-auction for vacant MPEG-4 slots on DD Free Dish, allotting carriage capacity to 10 television channels for the remainder of the 2026-27 financial year.

The successful bidders include Bharat Express, Republic TV, Vistaar News, Nation 27, News India 24X7, R. Bangla, Living India News, Prag News, Rengoni and NE News.

The allotted slots will remain valid from 5 June 2026 until 31 March 2027.

The auction was conducted to fill vacancies that emerged after the annual slot allocation exercise for FY27. Earlier this year, Prasar Bharati allotted 39 MPEG-4 slots through its 97th e-auction, covering the full financial year from April 2026 to March 2027. The latest round serves as a follow-up exercise to ensure unused capacity on the platform is put to use.

DD Free Dish remains one of India’s largest free-to-air television distribution platforms, reaching millions of households across the country. As a result, slot allocation on the platform continues to be closely watched by broadcasters seeking wider reach, particularly in Hindi-speaking and regional markets.

Under the auction framework, channels competed across multiple buckets based on genre and language. Bucket G1 was reserved for news and current affairs channels, while Bucket G2 catered to non-news broadcasters. Regional channels were classified under three separate categories covering southern languages, western and eastern regional languages, and other Schedule VIII languages.

Prasar Bharati had fixed reserve prices of Rs 61.65 lakh for the G1 category and Rs 60 lakh for G2. Among regional categories, reserve prices stood at Rs 31.65 lakh for R1, Rs 34.53 lakh for R2 and Rs 4.94 lakh for R3. The pricing structure reflects varying levels of demand and audience potential across content genres and language markets.

Applications for the mid-year auction were invited on 19 May, with broadcasters given until 25 May to submit bids and supporting documentation. Participation was restricted to channels holding valid permissions from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, with international public broadcasters also eligible to participate.

Successful channels will now be assigned available logical channel numbers on DD Free Dish and will continue on the platform until the end of the current allocation cycle. The latest auction underscores the continued importance of DD Free Dish as a key distribution avenue for both national and regional broadcasters looking to expand their footprint across India’s television landscape.