Mumbai: Prasar Bharati has invited satellite TV channels to bid for vacant MPEG-2 slots on DD Free Dish DTH Platform through the 56th e-auction. Successful bidders would be distributed on the platform for the allotment period between 1 January and 31 March 2022.

The bidding process shall be open to all language genre channels starting at a reserve price of Rs 1.94 crore and going up to Rs 5.51 crore.  The e-auction, if required, will be conducted on 24 December and the last date to submit applications is on 23 December by 3 p.m.

The public broadcaster has categorised TV channels into different buckets in accordance with the genre/language of the channel and defined a starting reserve price for the allotment period.

Only satellite channels licensed by the ministry for information and broadcasting for downlinking in India would be allotted slots on DD Free Dish. Only license holder company or their authorised distributor partners can apply for allocation of DD Free Dish slots.

Applicants must also pay a mandatory non-refundable processing fee of Rs 25,000 and participation fee of Rs 1.5 crore. For unsuccessful bidders, the participation fee will be refunded within three weeks after the declaration of the results of e-auction. For successful bidders, participation fee will be adjusted in the final installment of the carriage fee/bid amount.