Bidding strategy flaws or conspiracy? The backstory of DD Freedish auction crisis

New Delhi: The recently concluded DD FreeDish e-auction apparently sent a shock to the first six successful bidders in Bucket C of the first round, reserved for news channels, after a massive drop in prices in the second round.

Six news channels bidding under Bucket C of the first round ended up paying in the range of Rs 13.4 crore to Rs 14.35 crore on Wednesday, February 12th.

However, in the second round, the remaining six news channels acquired slots between Rs 8.1 crore and Rs 8.25 crore as they did not indulge in bucket-hopping.

According to multiple industry sources, when the successful bidders of the first round noticed that no news channel hopped their respective bucket in Round 2 on Thursday, they realised they were at a disadvantage.

BestMediaInfo.com has been reporting on the need for patient bidding by news broadcasters and successfully brought the prices down in the 2022 e-auctions.

However, Prasar Bharati changed the methodology in 2023, allowing players of lower buckets to bid in higher buckets from Round 2. This made all the players fight among themselves.

To date, the industry is unable to understand the logic behind allowing bucket-hopping from the second round while maintaining the so-called sanctity of the first round.

“If Prasar Bharati’s intent was to take advantage of the fight between players across genres, they should have abolished bucket classification altogether. If the pubcaster kept it open for the bidders who wanted to wait for their respective rounds, how is that unfair? In 2023, players were not aware of how the new methodology would affect the e-auctions, and a few news channels ended up paying 3X the base price. 2024 was an election year. By 2025, everyone had learned the process, and patience paid off,” said a broadcast veteran.

A senior broadcast executive involved in the auction process told BestMediaInfo.com that there is a huge amount at stake in DD FreeDish bidding, and every bidder looks for market intelligence.

“Each year, there is market intelligence about the overall number of expected bidders, and then there is the precedent of slots sold in the past. If the market intel tells you that the number of players is less than the number of slots sold, as well as 4-5 unsold slots, then who in their right mind will bid higher?” the executive quipped.

Besides market intel, the bidding trend from day one indicated that big broadcasters were the ones who picked up slots in Buckets A+ and A at a premium between 20-40% over the reserve price.

It was clear that the independent broadcasters were conservative and did not want to splurge money.

The independent broadcasters, who traditionally had 2-3 channels on DD FreeDish, were eyeing only one slot due to a weak market condition and concerns regarding return on investment.

Players such as Dangal, Goldmine, and TV Today were in a position to drop a channel if the prices did not make business sense.

“They were patient in the first round and continued to bid conservatively in following rounds as well. And they bought the slots at a price that made business sense,” said another source.

The controversy around the disqualification of two bidders in Bucket R1 had nothing to do with the availability of slots.

Even before the start of e-auctions, BestMediaInfo.com reported that the government had asked Prasar Bharati to reserve separate slots for Bucket R1 as it wanted to expand DD FreeDish reach in regional language markets.

Moreover, the bidding for Bucket R1 took place after Bucket C for the news genre and Bucket D. This time around, there was no aggressive bidding in Bucket D either, where we have seen devotional channels paying hefty prices in the past.

When asked what made the news broadcasters pay a premium of up to 105% on the base price to begin the e-auction for Bucket C, a broadcast veteran said, “It is clearly a decision-making issue at the top, when you assumed the buying price at Rs 14 crore.”

“I can tell you that there were at least three news broadcasters battling financial crises who would have left the bid if they had to pay more than Rs 10 crore. Still, you went ahead with more aggressive bidding in comparison to top broadcasters. It happens in politics where parties peddle conspiracy theories for their loss in elections, but even there, it does not yield any result,” the veteran added.

“TV9 Bharatvarsh and India TV have historically been the last players and have managed the slots at the lowest prices barring a couple of exceptions. News24 and News Nation were not in the position to pay a high price,” explained the source.

Successful bidders from the news genre in the past 5 years (Rs in crore):