Amid the mighty private DTH service providers, Doordarshan FreeDish has become the largest DTH (Direct-To-Home) platform with reach to more than 43 Million households, according to an official announcement from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Prasar Bharati’s DTH service DD FreeDish is the only Free-to-Air (FTA) DTH Service where the viewer doesn’t have to pay any monthly subscription fee. It only requires a small one time investment of about Rs. 2000 for purchase of the DD FreeDish set-top box.
With improved auction processes leading to addition of better quality and quantity of channels in various genres, between 2017 and 2022 alone, the Free DTH service of Doordarshan clocked a growth of almost 100% from 22 Million in 2017 to 43 Million in 2022. In comparison to 22 Million subscribers in 13 years between 2004 and 2017, DD FreeDish’s growth over last 5 years stands out. In just 5 years between 2017 and 2022, FreeDish has added another 21 Million subscribers, taking the total to 43 Million.
In the latest e-Auction for allotment of MPEG-2 slots of DD FreeDish for 2022-23, 63 channels were successfully allocated slots in various genres. In sync with rise in subscription base of DD FreeDish, the number of channels on DD FreeDish has also increased in multiple buckets this year. In News and Current Affairs category, the number of channels has increased from 11 to 14, while the bucket of Hindi Music, Hindi Sports, Hindi Teleshopping channels, Bhojpuri Movies and Bhojpuri general entertainment channels has registered growth from 13 to 16.
DD FreeDish hosts a total of 167 TV channels and 48 Radio channels, including 91 Doordarshan channels (comprising of 51 cobranded educational channels) and 76 private TV channels. With effect from April 1, 2022, DD FreeDish private TV channels bouquet would comprise of 8 Hindi general entertainment channels, 15 Hindi Movie channels, 6 Music channels, 22 News channels, 9 Bhojpuri channels, 4 Devotional and 2 foreign channels.
The new channel line-up has rendered the DD FreeDish bouquet more diverse and engaging than ever. For the first time on DD FreeDish, a dedicated channel for food, ‘Food Food’ by Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, has been added. There is good news for sports enthusiasts as now apart from DD Sports, FreeDish will have another sports channel ‘MyCam’.
