Zee News, which recently became free-to-air, has bagged a slot on Doordarshan’s FTA platform Freedish.
Zee News was the lone channel to win the bid in the auction, for which the reserve price was 4.3 crore.
When approached, a senior DD official refused to give the figure at which the channel won the auction, as the exact amount after various adjustments was not yet clear.
Meanwhile, Freedish – which currently carries eighty TV channels and 23 radio channels – will hold its 29th auction on 11 August 2016.
It also carries two channels as FTA which are otherwise pay channels - Aajtak and Big TV.

The official clarified to indiantelevision.com that Freedish will be able to carry more channels as it is shortly going on to MPEG4. While it could carry about sixteen channels per transponder but MPEG 4 allows up to 24 TV channels per transponder, apart from radio channels.

The official said the Indian conditional access system (iCAS) is being used to keep a tab on the number of subscribers, but it would remain free-to-air.
The reserve price which had been Rs 3.7 crore was raised to its present level for the 25th e-auction in January. indiantelevision.com had learnt that the bid amount went up to Rs 4.7 crore in earlier e-auctions. The reserve price in the 15th e-auction was Rs 3 crore and was raised to Rs 3.7 crore in the 16th auction.

The platform at present has space for eighty channels including its own channels and Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV and also carrues 24 All India Radio channels.
The e-Auction was conducted by M/s. C1 India Pvt. Ltd., Noida which also conducted the first stage of the FM Radio Phase III auctions on behalf of Prasar Bharati.

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