Freedish adds six channels amidst high carriage fee row

As the broadcasting industry continues to fight odds posed by various entities, another one mushrooming is the high carriage fees for free-to-air channels, especially news channels by a DTH platform.

News is that Doordarshan’s free DTH service platform – Freedish has now added six channels starting 1st November 2014; namely – ABP News, 9XM, India TV, Cinema TV, Maha Movies and Focus News. But Adgully also learns that while these have been added, a similar number of channels have been gone off the block for non-renewal of contracts. These channels include – Sahara Samay, News Nation, News 24, India News, Zee Smile, Gyandarshan 1 and 2 and News Nation UP / UT.

These changes, we learn, have occurred over an e-auction conducted by a Pune-based technology firm for Prasar Bharti during the last week of October 2014.

Citing reasons for this, sources from the industry inform Adgully that the raised carriage fees of channels from 70 – 80 lakhs to an estimated 3.8 crore have put channels in dilemma of renewing their contracts with the platform.

While most broadcasters negotiated with the platform provider, however, ABP News went ahead and signed the dotted line. This, sources say, may have pushed other channels to join the bandwagon.

Sources concluded that it is a wait and watch situation till these channels submit the designated amounts to the platform.