DD Free Dish expands South reach with more regional channels: Govt

The government has said that DD Free Dish has expanded its reach with greater South Indian language representation. In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Dr L Murugan said the Government has taken various proactive measures to increase the representation of South Indian language channels on DD Free Dish. He informed that for better regional representation, slots had been reserved for South Indian language channels in the e-auctions of the DD Free Dish platform. Eligibility norms have been simplified to ensure greater participation from private broadcasters in the southern region. Three additional South Indian language private channels – TV9 Telugu, Aastha Kannada and Aastha Telugu, have been onboarded on DD Free Dish since 1st April this year. Doordarshan’s regional channels, such as DD Tamil, DD Saptagiri, DD Chandana, DD Yadagiri, and DD Malayalam, have also been onboarded.