MUMBAI: The first annual e-auction for MPEG4 slots on Doordarshan’s FTA DTH platform FreeDish witnessed an intense competition that was held from 27 to 29 March. According to reports, the highest bid during the e-auction was Rs 57.1 lakh, a premium of almost 1150 per cent over the reserve price of Rs 5 lakh and the average bid was at Rs 44.17 lakh per slot.

A total of 15 MPEG4 slots were successfully sold to channels across genres that will be available on the platform with effect from 15 April 2019.

The public broadcaster stated that the response to the 39th e-auction was overwhelming, as almost four times applications were received against the vacant MPEG-4 slots. Also, there was no genre based restrictions or reservations for participating in the e-auction.

Among the 15 channels, five of them are Hindi devotional channels including Aastha Bhajan, Arihant, Satsang, Subh TV and Vedic TV. Apart from that, only three are non-Hindi channels while the rest are Hindi channels. Three MPEG-4 slots have been reserved for public broadcasting purposes.

Home Shop18 and NT1 have won slots in the teleshopping genre. Enter 10 Bangla, Oscar Bhojpuri, Sky Star Bangla, Sky Star Telugu and WoW Cinema One have bought the slots in the movie genre. In the news genre, ABP Ganga, Chardikala Time TV and Aryan TV National have won the slots.

Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar had tweeted, “Happy to share that the first annual e-auction for MPEG-4 slots (39th e-auction) on DD Free Dish saw robust bidding with 15 successful slots sold to channels across genres and languages.”

“The e-Auction saw slots being taken at an average price that was nearly 8 to 9 times the invitational price underscoring the high competition. With this overall projected annual revenue from DD Free Dish will cross 400 cr between MPEG2 and MPEG-4 slots,” he said.