Prasar Bharati (PB ) has issued a Notice Inviting Applications for the allotment of vacant MPEG-4 slots on the DD FreeDish platform. These slots are available for the period from November 7, 2025, to March 31, 2026.
Private satellite TV channels can participate in this 92nd online e-auction. These channels can be accessed on any free-to-air MPEG-4 set-top box. MPEG-4 compatible set-top boxes are readily available in the market these days. Alternatively, you can upgrade your old set-top box to MPEG-4/HD using an MPEG-4 DTH card.
Here are the details -
- Two types of fees will be required to apply to channels:
- Non-refundable Processing Fee: ₹25,000/- (online payment is mandatory).
- Participation Fee: ₹3,00,000/- (via Demand Draft or RTGS).
- Note: For Regional Buckets R1 and R3, the participation fee will be 60% of the starting reserve price or ₹3,00,000/-, whichever is lower.
Starting Reserve Prices (Pro-Rata basis) for E-auction are as follows:
Bucket Name --- Channel Genre Starting Reserve Price (INR)
G1 (1st Round) News & Current Affairs TV channels ₹31,94,000/-
G2 (2nd Round) --- All genres of Non-News & Current Affairs TV channels ₹27,02,000/-
R2 (3rd Round) --- Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Odiya languages ₹11,89,000/-
R1 (4th Round) --- Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam languages ₹1,99,000/-
R3 (5th Round) --- Other Regional languages ₹1,99,000/-
Important Terms -
- The genre and language of the channel will be declared during the e-auction. It will be mandatory to broadcast (telecast) only 75% of the content (audio).
- A 14.5% annual interest will be charged for late carriage fee installments.
- Successful channels will need to submit an IRD box (with dual IP multicast output and SDI) to Doordarshan's DTH station one week in advance to receive a spot on DD Free Dish.
For broadcasters of private TV channels -
Check here for the application link and official information. This information is for informational purposes only.
For DD Free Dish viewers -
You can view the MPEG-4 channel list 2025 here. This MPEG-4 channel list will be updated again on November 7.
You can find other e-auction updates and e-auction results from here.