DD Free Dish

DD Free Dish
FormerlyDD Direct Plus
Company typeCentral Public Sector Undertaking
IndustrySatellite television
Founded16 December 2004; 19 years ago (2004-12-16)
Headquarters
New Delhi, India
Area served
SAARC
Services
OwnerPrasar Bharati
Websiteprasarbharati.gov.in/free-dish

DD Free Dish (formerly known as DD Direct Plus) is an Indian State-owned free-to-air satellite television provider owned and operated by Public Service Broadcaster Prasar Bharati.[1] It was launched in December, 2004. In March 2022, It has a reach of over 43 million households which is more than 25% of the total TV households in the country. DD Free Dish earns by selling slots to private broadcasters through e-auction.[2][3]

Currently, DD Free Dish has 117 television channels, among which 94 channels are in MPEG-2 format and 23 channels in MPEG-4 format. For classes 1 to 12, educational TV channels are run under PM e-Vidya program.[4]

  1. ^ "DD FreeDish auction: Prasar Bharati bags Rs 862 cr from sale of 46 MPEG-2 slots - Exchange4media". exchange4media. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
  2. ^ "Slots on Doordarshan Free Dish to be Online auction to private channels". The Economic Times. 16 January 2019. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  3. ^ Farooqui, Javed (9 August 2023). "TRAI seeks views on regulating DD Free Dish". The Economic Times. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
  4. ^ "One class, One channel started on DD Free dish under PM e-Vidhya Program". Blog on DD Free dish. 2 September 2020. Retrieved 2 September 2020.