Prasar Bharati invites applications for MPEG-4 slots on DD Freedish; auctions on March 4

As per the updated policy released in the first week of January this year, the participation fee for MPEG-4 slots is kept at Rs 3 lakhs 

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New Delhi: India’s public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati, has released a notice inviting applications for the allotment of the vacant MPEG-4 slots on its DD Freedish DTH platform. 

With a similar process ongoing for the MPEG-2 slots, the auctions for which are scheduled for February 10, 2025, the pubcaster is now inviting applications for the MPEG-4 slots as well. 

The MPEG-4 slots, when filled, will be valid for the period from April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026. 

The last date for the applicants to submit all the requisite documents is February 25, 2025, by 3:00 PM. 

The auctions for the MPEG-4 slots on DD Freedish will be the 7th annual and the 86th online “e-auction” since the inception of Prasar Bharati. As per the notification, the pubcaster will hold the auction tentatively on March 4, 2025. 

The e-auction for the MPEG-4 slots is in line with the updated e-auction methodology policy released. 

As per the updated policy released in the first week of January this year, the participation fee for MPEG-4 slots is kept at Rs 3 lakhs. 

The processing fee for the MPEG-4 slots is Rs 25,000. In addition, the pubcaster also included HD channels in the bucket for both MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 slots.

In the notice, the public broadcaster has mentioned about the upgradation of the MPEG-4 stream on the DTH platform. Consequently, there will be segmentation in the auction, with the auction for private HD channels and the second round of R3 bucket being held after the upgradation. 

The pubcaster wrote, “The upgradation of MPEG-4 streams on DD Freedish is under progress. Hence, in the interim, slots for various buckets/rounds for the 7th Annual e-auction will be provided in the notification and e-auction for Private HD Channels, and the second round of R3 will be taken up once the upgradation is completed.” 

As per the notice inviting applications released by Prasar Bharati, Bucket R1 will include all genres of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam languages that are operational and available on “at least one private DTH platform, Freedish, or a registered MSO. The reserve price for the same is kept at Rs 5 lakh, which in the second round jumps to Rs 15 lakh. 

The R2 bucket includes all genres of Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, and Odiya languages that fulfill all the requirements as the ones in the R1 bucket. The reserve price is also kept the same as the R1 bucket. The R3 bucket has all regional languages that have not been included in the previous two buckets. Hindi and Urdu are excluded from this bucket. With only one slot, the number of rounds for the R3 bucket is also singular.

There is also a “Regional Open Round” where all the unsuccessful bidders of the previous three buckets and those channels that are yet to be launched or re-launched, in the languages mentioned above, can participate. 

The MPEG-4 slots then bring forth the G1 and G2 buckets, which include news and current affairs in G1 and all genres of non-news and current affairs channels in G2. The reserve price for these buckets is Rs 30 lakh, which goes up to Rs 50 lakh in the second round. 

Like the regional open round, DD Freedish will also conduct a general open round, the reserve price for which is Rs 70 lakh. This round will witness participation from all language and genre channels. The bid increment in the MPEG-4 slots is kept at Rs 50,000 for the R buckets and Rs 1 lakh for the G buckets. 

DD Freedish e-auction Prasar Bharati auction MPEG-4
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