DD Freedish e-auction scheduled on 22 Sept with reserve price of Rs 3.7 crore

NEW DELHI: Barely six weeks after
the last e-auction, Doordarshan will
hold the 22nd e-auction for its free-
to-air DTH platform Freedish on 22
September in an attempt to touch
the target of 112 television channels
in the next few months.Doordarshan
has set a reserve price of Rs3.7
crore per slot (as in the last few
auctions) for the online e-auction,
thoughIndiantelevision.comlearnt
that the bid amount went up to Rs
4.7 crore in earlier e-auctions.In the
21st auction on 12 August, DD
Freedish managed to auction six
slots for approximately Rs 23.2
crore.However, DD sources refused to
divulge the number of slots being
auctioned to prevent bidders forming
consortia to bid or resort to other
malpractices.Sources also said that
while Freedish maybe encrypted
from Mpeg2 to Mpeg4 shortly to
keep a tab on the number of
subscribers, it would remain free-to-
air.The e-auction will be conducted
by C1 India Pvt. Ltd., Noida which is
also conducting the FM Radio Phase
III auctions on behalf of Prasar
Bharati.The reserve price in the 15th
e-auction was Rs 3 crore and was
raised to Rs 3.7 crore in the 16th
auction.Currently, Freedish has 64
channels including its own channels,
and Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha
TV.The participation amount (EMD)
in the e-auction is Rs 1.5 crore,
which has to be deposited in
advance before or by 12 noon on 22
September along with the non-
refundable processing fee of Rs
10,000 in favour of PB (BCI)
Doordarshan Commercial Service,
New Delhi.Incremental amount for
the auction will be Rs 10 lakh and
the time for every slot e-auction will
be of 15 minutes duration.Of the
reserve price, Rs 1.1 crore has to
bedeposited within one month of
placement and another Rs 1.1 crore
within two months along with service
tax of 14 per cent on the bid
amount.The balance bid amount
needs to be deposited within six
months, failing which the reserve
price will be forfeited.