The big four broadcasters – Star, Zee, Sony and Viacom18 – don’t seem too eager to put their general entertainment channels on DD Freedish this year. However, broadcasters are looking to secure time slots for their movie and music channels, well-placed sources have confirmed the development with BestMediaInfo.com.
The big four submitted entries for a total of 11 time slots, including GECs, movies and music.
Read also : News channels are likely to have more slots on DD Freedish this year; prices to refresh
Sources from Prasar Bharati told BestMediaInfo.com that Star asked to bid on two slots, Sony asked to bid on three channels, Zee intended to bid on four channels and Viacom18 for two channels on DD Freedish.
Read also : DD Freedish Online Auction: Republic Bharat, ABP News, Zee News, News Nation and Times Now Navbharat land top five spots
According to slots auctioned last year, four slots in the A+ bucket for GECs won by Star Utsav, Zee Anmol, Sony Pal and Colors Rishtey are likely to become vacant.
Prasar Bharati’s DD Freedish DTH platform MPEG-2 slots electronic auction started on Monday. On Tuesday, the auctions for Bucket R (Devotional), Bucket A+ (GECs), Bucket A (Films) and Bucket B (Music) took place.
The three reserved slots for Bucket R were chosen by Ramdev’s Patanjali-owned chains for a whopping Rs 50 crore at more than 5 times the reserve price.
This was followed by the first round of bidding for five slots each in bucket A+, A and B. However, none of the big four broadcasters won slots for their GECs in bucket A+.
The successful first-round bidders for five slots were – Shemaroo TV, The Q India, Enterr 10 GEC, Dangal and ABZY Cool/Azaad. The highest bidder in the segment was Shemaroo TV which paid out Rs 15 crore 45 lakhs followed by The Q India with Rs 15 crore 40 lakhs, Enterr 10 GEC with Rs 15 crore 35 lakhs, Dangal with Rs 15 crore 25 lakhs and ABZY Cool/Azaad with Rs 15 crore 20 lakhs.
According to the sources, the big four broadcasters are unlikely to bid aggressively on Wednesday as well and the remaining slots will most likely become vacant.
Sources said broadcasters were under heavy pressure from paid DTH players to refrain from putting their channels on DD Freedish.
“On the one hand, DTH players are pressuring broadcasters not to put their channels on Freedish. On the other hand, TRAI has also indicated that broadcasters should reduce their MRPs for cable subscribers and DTH s ‘they provide their channels on Freedish for free,’ said one media watcher.
“Currently the situation is that dominant players such as Tata Play and Jio are unwilling to support their reach if they (broadcasters) place their channels on Freedish,” the Observer added.
A senior TV executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said abstaining from DD Freedish is a safer option as they are able to keep paying DTH players happy and also avoid unnecessary interference from TRAI.
“They claim DD Freedish has 40 million boxes but no one knows what the real number is. Although we may repurpose much of our original content on Freedish, we will end up drawing the ire of Pay DTH and financially it is not worth it,” the exec added.
Remember that these four channels had decided to disconnect DD Freedish from March 1, 2019 because TRAI’s new tariff decree implemented on March 31 did not allow the inclusion of free-to-air channels in the pay channel package. However, TDSAT canceled the TRAI provision twice and these channels made their return in June 2020.
