Cash-strapped news channels resolve to be mindful in DD Freedish e-auction

The sixth annual e-auction of MPEG-2 slots on DD Freedish, which started on Monday, picked up pace on Tuesday.

While there were only two slots sold on Monday in the A+ bouquet, 11 channels picked up slots on Tuesday in the A+, A and B bouquets.

As soon as the remaining five slots of Bucket B are sold, the auctions for bucket C, reserved for the news genre, will start on Wednesday afternoon.

Despite being a cash-strapped genre, news has always been aggressive in bidding only in the FOMO.

There have always been rumours about the limited number of slots creating artificial demand in order to ensure high bids from the channels. Those numbers were never official and true.

Following a BestMediaInfo.com story in 2022, the news channels saved at least 50% of what they spent in 2021.

BestMediaInfo.com story, quoting a source in Prasar Bharati, stated all the channels will get slots.

However, with the new methodology, the news channels again panicked in 2023 and ended up doubling their bids.

It all started with Arnab Goswami’s Republic Bharat and TV9 Bharatvarsh bidding aggressively despite opposing the new methodology.

Sensing the game playing out in real-time, the likes of News18, Zee News and NDTV India also joined the bidding war.

Finally, the cash-rich News18 India backed by Reliance Industries picked up the first slot for Rs 19.85 crore setting the bar high for other news channels.

Cut to 2024, multiple news channels except for Republic Bharat and TV9 Bharatvarsh told BestMediaInfo.com that they would hold their nerves and would not bid in a manner that they end up paying 3X of the base price.

“Hindi general entertainment channels and movie channels secured slots this year by paying merely 35-40% more than the base price and if the news genre treats that as a benchmark, they will not go beyond Rs 10-11 crore,” said a senior executive at a leading news channel.

After skipping the bid in 2023, News24 and India News are ready to participate in the e-auction today because of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Industry observers told BestMediaInfo.com that News24 did not experience any rate cut on the back of losing the “Free” audience because advertisers pay for the “Pay” audience.

“The “Free” audience is only useful for the game of perception and advertisements from political parties and government,” said a senior media planner who did not wish to be quoted.

“Last year, the news genre did not wait for the second round of Bucket C and ended up bidding in Bucket B. This bucket hopping was created by Prasar Bharati to inflate the bid amount and the news channel fell prey to the trick. I hope they will wait for the second round of Bucket C which is the fifth round with a base price of Rs 8 crore,” said a senior executive who is participating in the bid.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com