DD’s DTH service Freedish hikes reserve price to Rs 4.30 cr

MUMBAI: After mopping up Rs 57 crore (Rs 570 million) in the 23rd e-auction, Doordarshan’s direct-to-home (DTH) service Freedish has increased the reserve price to Rs 4.30 crore (Rs 43 million) per slot for the 24th e-auction to be held on 9 November. Earlier, the reserve price was Rs 3.7 crore (Rs 37 million). The DTH operator with the maximum capacity of carrying 64 channels has not disclosed the vacant slots that are up for grabs. Interested parties will have to submit uplink and downlink permission from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) along with the application.


The participation amount for the e-auction is Rs 1.50 crore (Rs 15 million) while the processing fee is Rs 10,000, which is to be submitted by demand draft (DD) to the PB (BCI) Doordarshan Commercial Service. Applicants must provide their uplink/downlink permission documents received from the ministries concerned. The demand drafts of unsuccessful bidders will be returned immediately or within a week after the completion of the e-auction process


The last day for submission of completed application is 9 November. The e-auction will be conducted by Noida-based C1 India. Incremental amount will be Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million) for the 24th e-auction and every e-auction will be of 15 minutes. Additional five minutes will be added if the bid is received before the closing time of each e-auction. The next round of e-auction, if held, will be conducted after 10 minutes of each e-auction. Doordarshan might extend the e-auction to the next day if required. The successful channels will have to deposit Rs 1.10 crore (Rs 11 million) of the reserve price within one month of channel placement. The second instalment of Rs 1.1 crore (Rs 11 million) will have to be deposited in the second month of channel placement along with 14 per cent service tax on total bid amount.

The balance bid amount will have to be deposited after six months of placement of the channel, failing which the deposited amount will be forfeited and the channel will be discontinued after a 21-day notice. In the 23rd auction held on 19 October, the DTH platform had added four new channels, namely Sony Mix, Sadhna National, Homeshop18, and Big Magic Ganga, while 10 existing channels, namely ABP News, India TV, Cinema TV, Enterr10, 9XM, Dabangg, Mastii, Chardikala Time, B4U Movies, and Maha Movie, had renewed their deals.


Resource :-http://www.televisionpost.com/dth/dds-dth-service-freedish-hikes-reserve-price-to-rs-4-30-cr/