NEW DELHI: The mock drill of e-auction of 20 slots on Doordarshan’s free-to-air direct-to-home platform DD Direct Plus was held smoothly today after the e-auctioneer was changed in view of the technical hitches that had come up when the dummy round was held on 20 July.
DD sources told indiantelevision.com that the dummy and mock drill will continue tomorrow as well. The e-auctioneer is NCDEX Spot of Mumbai and was part of the e-auctioneers that had been shortlisted for the auctions.
The main e-auction for the slots will be held on 28 July, the sources said. It is learnt that a total of 35 bidders are in the queue of the e-auction on the introductory round of the existing capacity of 59 channels of the platform. The second round will be conducted when the capacity is increased to 200.
A minimum bid amount of Rs 15 million has already been deposited by the bidder channels. Each channel is required to have a digital signature to participate and will be given a unique ID.
The highest bidder for each slot will get on the DD Direct Plus, FTA DTH platform giving it a direct reach of 12 million subscribers. There is no reservation for any particular genre. Prasar Bharti expects to generate at least Rs 4 billion from these auctions which it expects will help to turn around.
DD Direct Plus is the only free-to-air platform and has a viewership base of eight to nine million. Ministry sources said only Indian entities would be allowed to bid in the first phase, as no final decision has been taken on the foreign broadcasters.
