Fifteen MPEG-4 channel slots on India’s DD Free Dish direct-to-home TV platform have been sold in an e-auction by public broadcast operator Prasar Bharati.
Bidding for the vacant MPEG-4 slots was open to all genre and language channels, with a reserve price set at INR500,000.Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar said each MPEG-4 slot fetched between eight to nine times the reserve price. The overall revenue from DD Free Dish is expected to exceed INR4 billion for both its MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 slots.
“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,” Shekhar tweeted.
Three MPEG-4 slots have been reserved on the free-to-air platform for public broadcasting purposes, he added.
Earlier this year, Prasar Bharati earned INR 3.95 billion from the sale of 40 MPEG-2 slots during the 38th e-auction of DD Free Dish slots.
