DD Free Dish: Prasar Bharati allots 10 channels in mid-year MPEG-4 auction

Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has announced the results of the mid-year 99th e-auction of MPEG-4 slots on its free-to-air direct-to-home (DTH) platform DD Free Dish, with 10 television channels securing carriage slots for the remainder of the 2026-27 cycle.

The successful channels in the latest auction include Bharat Express, Republic TV, Vistaar News, Nation 27, News India 24X7, R. Bangla, Living India News, Prag News, Rengoni and NE News. The allotted slots will be valid from June 5, 2026, to March 31, 2027.

The mid-year auction was conducted to fill vacant MPEG-4 slots on DD Free Dish. 

Follow-up to annual FY27 slot allocation

The latest auction comes shortly after Prasar Bharati completed its 97th MPEG-4 e-auction for the 2026-27 financial year, during which 39 television channels were allotted slots on the platform. Those allocations covered the full annual cycle from April 1, 2026, to March 31, 2027.

The newly announced allotments are intended to fill vacancies that arose after the annual auction and will remain effective for the balance period of the ongoing cycle, from June 5, 2026, until the end of March 2027.

Prasar Bharati had invited applications for the mid-year auction on May 19, with the application window remaining open until May 26. The e-auction process was subsequently conducted to allocate the available slots.

Auction Structure and Categories

The 99th e-auction covered vacant MPEG-4 slots across multiple categories classified by content genre and language.

Under the auction framework, Bucket G1 was designated for news and current affairs television channels, while Bucket G2 catered to all non-news and current affairs channels.

For regional language broadcasters, Prasar Bharati offered slots across three separate categories:

• Bucket R1: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam channels.
• Bucket R2: Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and Odia channels.
• Bucket R3: Other regional language channels included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, excluding Hindi, Urdu and languages covered under R1 and R2.

The categorisation enables Prasar Bharati to accommodate broadcasters across multiple linguistic markets while ensuring balanced representation of regional content on the platform.

Reserve Prices

Prasar Bharati had specified reserve prices for each category before the commencement of the auction.

For general entertainment and national channels, the reserve price for the G1 (News and Current Affairs) bucket was fixed at Rs 61.65 lakh, while the reserve price for the G2 (Non-News) bucket stood at Rs 60 lakh.

Among regional categories, the reserve price was set at Rs 31.65 lakh for R1, Rs 34.83 lakh for R2, and Rs 4.94 lakh for R3.

The reserve pricing reflects the relative demand and audience potential across language markets and content genres on the DD Free Dish platform.