FreeDish auction: Hindi movies, News, Hindi GEC highest-paid genres

Prasar Bharati on Monday concluded its 75th online auction for DD FreeDish MPEG-2 slots. The pubcaster earned a total of Rs 1156 crore from sale of 64 slots over the seven days of the auction. This year, the Hindi movie channel bucket, saw the sale of highest number of slots,14, for Rs 241 crore. This was followed by the news genre bucket, which sold 13 slots for Rs 231.95 crore, and Hindi GEC bucket that sold 12 slots for Rs 227.7 crore.

Under Bucket A of the DD FreeDish MPEG-2 auction, which consists of Hindi movies, the 14 slots were picked up by Colors Cineplex Superhits, Zee Anmol Cinema, Star Utsav Movies, Colors Cineplex Bollywood, Star Gold Thrill, Sony Wah, Action Movies, Goldmine, B4U movies, B4U Kadak, Dhinchaak, Goldmines Bollywood, Zee Anmol Cinema 2 and Goldmines. The highest price of Rs 18.30 crore was paid by Colors Cineplex Superhits and lowest, Rs 16.3 crore, was paid by B4U Kadak.

Under Bucket A+(Hindi GEC), the 12 channels that bagged the slots were Manoranjan TV, Manoranjan Grand, Dhamaal, Dangal, Sun Hindi GEC, The Q, Big Magic, Shemaroo TV, Shemaroo Umang, Dangal 2, Nazara and Ishara. The highest price, Rs 21.25 crore, was paid by Manoranjan Grand, and the lowest price of Rs 16.70 crore was paid by Ishara.

Bucket B, which consists of music, sports and bhojpuri channels, also saw a total of 14 channels bagging slots for Rs 219.35 crore. The channels that won the bid in the category were Chumbak, Showbox, Filmchi Bhojpuri, B4U Music, Sports18, Manoranjan Prime, Raapchik Movies, Zee Biscope, Mastii, Unique TV, Bhojpuri Cinema, 9XM and B4U Bhojpuri.

Under Bucket C, which consists of Hindi news channels, 13 channels bagged the slot for Rs 231.95 crore. Zee News, NDTV, AajTak, ABP News, News18 India, R Bharat, News 24, India TV, GNT, TV9 Bharatvarsh, Times Now Navbharat, News Nation and India Daily Live were the winners in this category. The highest price of Rs 18.75 crore was paid each by Zee News and NDTV. India Daily Live paid the lowest price of Rs 16.45 crore.

Under Bucket D, which consists of devotional channels, Marathi and Punjabi channels, and news English channels, nine slots were sold for Rs 144.8 crore. The slots were bought by Russian Today, Sanskaar, Sadhana, Zee Punjabi, Aastha, Sun Marathi, Zee Chitramandir, Manorajan Movies Punjabi and Fakt Marathi.

Under Bucket R1, which consists of other languages, only three slots were sold. These slots were picked up by Manoranjan Tamil Peer, Movie Plus Kammam Malyali and Popular TV for Rs 38.3 crore. PitchOnNet