DTH
Tata Sky ties up with Ola Sunburn Festival 2017 to bring the biggest EDM extravaganza to small screens
MUMBAI: Tata Sky, India’s leading content distribution platform, tied up with Ola Sunburn Festival 2017, one of the largest music festivals in the world, to bring its eclectic mix of music, entertainment, experiences, celebration and lifestyle straight to the small screens. Apart from live streaming Ola Sunburn Festival 2017, Tata Sky Mobile App will showcase nearly 500 hours of music fest content from over the years too, which will be open to all users, including non-subscribers.
Performances by the headliners of Ola Sunburn Festival – Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, DJ Snake, Clean Bandits, Martin Garrix, Afrojack and KSHMR – will be live-streamed on Tata Sky Mobile App. Over and above the 4 days of live streaming, prior to the event there will be a rich library of content available on demand on the app. This includes official after movies, artist interviews, exclusive backstage footage and performances from the world’s top EDM acts such as KYGO, NUCLEYA, Hardwell, David Guetta, Tiesto, Armin Van Burren and many more as well as an archive of all the past events from Sunburn season 10.
This is the first time ever that Ola Sunburn festival, which kicks off on December 28th, will be live streamed on the Tata Sky Mobile app making it the only OTT platform covering the festival live.
The sheer depth of content on offer, which will be archived on the app for viewing after the festival ends, will allow EDM fans to fully immerse themselves in the 11th edition of Asia’s largest music festival on-the-go wherever and whenever they like. Moreover, Tata Sky will broadcast snippets of Ola Sunburn Festival 2017 on Channel 100 too.
Tata Sky’s Chief Communication Officer, Malay Dikshit said, “With increasing screens and the appetite of millennials to experiment with content, it is essential to reach the entertainment needs of consumers, just the way they like it. To create endearing and impactful engagement with millennials and to bring alive content across all types and sizes of screens, the Tata Sky Mobile App has partnered with the hugely popular music festival – Sunburn.”
The Sunburn Festival, the highlight of a year-long calendar of Sunburn events, has established itself as one of the annual ‘go-to’ events for EDM fans, drawing crowds of hundreds of thousands from India and around the world every year.
To cater to these fans, Tata Sky has lined up a number of ground-breaking experiences:
– A breath-taking 360-degree virtual reality experience that will let fans see what the DJ sees as he cranks out his tunes, putting them at the heart of the action like never before.
– A Graffiti Wall where fans can get their photographs clicked and jazz them up by drawing over them with personalised messages, quirky costumes or spray paint.
– A 3D hologram of the company’s logo at various points at the venue, in order to make fans’ engagement with India’s leading content distribution platform an even more experiential one.
DTH
DD Free Dish e-auction revenue dips to Rs 642 crore as slot sales fall
Revenue dips as revised norms reshape bidding in 94th round
NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati’s DD Free Dish has closed its 8th annual, and 94th overall, e-auction for MPEG-2 slots with total collections of Rs 642 crore for the period April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027.
That is lower than last year’s Rs 780 crore haul, with 55 slots sold compared with 61 in FY25–26. The softer topline reflects both a slimmer inventory and a recalibrated auction framework.
This was the first auction conducted after amendments to the e-auction methodology, including tighter eligibility norms and a revised reserve price structure for MPEG-2 slots. The stated aim was greater transparency and more serious participation. The immediate outcome appears to be more measured bidding in certain categories.
Day one set the tone. Eight slots were sold, six in the premium Bucket A+ and two in Bucket A. The strong early action in A+, which typically houses Hindi GECs and movie channels, reaffirmed the enduring appeal of mass Hindi programming on the platform.
Among the broadcasters securing slots in the initial rounds were Zee Entertainment Enterprises, Sony Pictures Networks India, Viacom18’s Colors network, Sun Network and Shemaroo Entertainment. Their continued presence signals that, despite the pull of digital platforms, Free Dish remains a strategic must have for legacy networks chasing scale in price sensitive markets.
The final bouquet of 55 channels leans heavily towards Hindi news, movies, devotional fare, Bhojpuri and regional programming.
In Hindi news, familiar heavyweights such as Aaj Tak, ABP News, India TV, News18 India, Republic Bharat and Zee News made the cut. Entertainment and movie offerings include Colors Rishtey, Star Utsav, Dangal TV, Sony Pal, Shemaroo TV, Goldmines, B4U Movies and Zee Biskope. Devotional viewers will find Aastha, Sanskar and Sadhna Gold among the selected channels.
Regional representation includes Sun Marathi, Fakt Marathi, PTC Punjabi and GTC Punjabi.
Equally telling were the absences. Broadcasters such as Big Magic, Filamchi Bhojpuri, India News, Bharat Express, Movieplex Maithili, TV9 Marathi, Shemaroo Marathibana, Zee Chitra Mandir and Satsang did not participate. The pullback is particularly visible across Marathi, Bhojpuri, Maithili and spiritual programming. Industry observers point to the revised reserve prices, tighter eligibility norms and a reassessment of commercial viability as possible factors.
DD Free Dish continues to beam into over 40 million homes, largely in rural and semi urban India. For advertisers and broadcasters alike, it offers efficient access to Bharat markets where pay TV penetration remains uneven and OTT subscriptions are limited.
The moderation in revenue this year may be read as a pause rather than a retreat. Fewer slots, a reworked auction playbook and evolving broadcaster strategies have clearly shaped outcomes. Yet premium Hindi entertainment retains its pull, and the platform’s mass reach remains hard to ignore.
As the FY26–27 line-up settles in, the mix of winners and walkaways will define the private satellite channel landscape on DD Free Dish for the year ahead.
