Prasar Bharti office.
| Photo Credit: KRISHNAN V.V.
State-owned public broadcaster Prasar Bharati is launching a pilot scheme on DD Free Dish platform, wherein popular regional language channels, permitted and licensed by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, can apply for allotment of vacant slots on the newly upgraded MPEG-4 streams.
MPEG-4 is a multimedia standard used for compressing digital audio and visual data, which allows for high-quality video to be compressed into smaller file sizes for storage and transmission.
“Prasar Bharati’s endeavour for outreach in unrepresented and under-represented areas is driven by a commitment to bridge gaps in access, opportunity, and awareness through promoting regional languages apart from other activities,” said the Ministry, adding that regional channels of Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bangla, Assamese, and Odia languages will be given preference.
“Regional news channels will also be given preference over non-news regional channels. These regional channels will be allotted slots free of cost on pilot basis. The allotment will be only for the period up to March 31, 2026,” it said.
DD Free Dish currently has a bouquet of 482 TV channels (including 320 DD co-branded educational channels such as PM eVidya and Swayam Prabha) and 48 radio channels. Apart from Doordarshan channels, it has private TV channels of general entertainment, news, devotion, movies, sports, etc.
The platform has no monthly or annual subscription fee for viewers. “This unique and affordable model has made DD Free Dish the largest DTH platform, reaching about 65 million households (as per market research firm Chrome DM) even in remote, rural, inaccessible and border areas,” said the Ministry.
Published – November 28, 2025 10:34 pm IST
